Out of Tune
by James Stapleton
Summary: A truly shocking conclusion! The world of music is filled with art and deception. When a famous musician is killed in his house, the detectives are out to find out who did it...and how. This story continues to Haunting Memories.
1. Prologue: One Summer Morning

_**Foreword: The Mystery of River Heights...**_

**For those who haven't read my previous two novels, _Missing in Action_ and _Ocean of Deceit_, River Heights in my story will be a small peaceful town in New Jersey, not a suburb of Chicago, Illinois. If you want to know how the authors throughout the years have changed the location of River Heights, visit _Nancy Drew Sleuth_ website. **

** I'm glad to start another mystery after continuing, twisting, and bending the plot to surprise my readers in the last two novels. This one is no exception. Nancy and the Hardys are in another mystery, but this time, the mystery takes place in Seattle, where Her Interactive, the company that creates Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys computer games, is located. While the last one involved impossible locked room, this one involves impossible alibi. But I will tell you one thing: truth is not what it appears to be.**

**Enjoy the first chapter, which starts in an isolated house located in Maine. This prologue will prove to be an important part of the story. Read, enjoy, and please review! The more reviews I get, the more frequently I will update this story.

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_**1**_

**_Prologue: One Summer Morning_**

In a northern shore in Maine, a house stood on a cliff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Built in the early twentieth century by a Quebecois magician Alphonse Piermont. He built the two-storied house just a few years before his mysterious demise.

For over a century, many people resided in the house, but none of them stayed there for more than a decade.

Maria Voorhees wasn't an exception. She was a beautiful twenty-two-year-old pianist who was nationally recognized and had performed around the world. It was told that she had a special talent and had a bright future.

But just a year ago, she had died in her summerhouse. She drank poison and had died in the bedroom. Next to her was a will she had left. It said:

"I hereby end my final note."

* * *

It was a sunny day at the town of River Heights, where a spunky eighteen-year-old detective lived in her Victorian-style house. She was told by her father, who was a prominent attorney in the town, to water the grass in the garden. Because the housekeeper, Hannah Gruen, was out on vacation, the two Drews had to do the house chores by themselves. Mr. Drew was away most of the times, so it was up to Nancy to do the chores and cook dinners. 

As the titian-haired girl walked down the stairs to the garden, she heard a familiar yelping behind her. Smiling, she turned around. "What is it, Togo?" she called.

A terrier appeared from inside the air-conditioned house. It was Togo. This dog had been Nancy's pet and friend for quite some time, when it appeared in the park. Nancy remembered every second of it. She had been driving down River Road to her house and passed the Muskoka River and River Heights Park, the park located right near the bank of the river that split River Heights into two parts: the downtown and the uptown. The uptown was where Nancy and her father lived with the housekeeper for nearly fifteen years. Just as she was crossing the bridge, a dog came running into the road, so the girl detective smashed the break. The car stopped just a few feet from the terrier. Getting out, Nancy found that the dog was dirty, lonely, and hungry. It seemed like it had been abandoned for quite a few weeks. She was worried, so she took it into her convertible and went to the nearest vet.

Nancy remembered how she had a pet cat when she was little. When Nancy was born, her mother bought a cat for her, and it was named Snowball. But then, just three years after the girl's birth, her mother had died. Nancy never knew whether her mother died because of an illness or an accident, since her father never actually told her how her mother had died. He said he didn't want to talk about it, so Nancy would always quit asking him before he would become angry and send her back to her room.

Looking at Togo, Nancy remembered the fateful day when Snowball escaped from the window one day and never came back. It had been when she was just seven, and she never had a pet until a year ago, when she met Togo.

"Are you hungry, boy?" the young sleuth asked the terrier, gently stroking its head. "Would you like something to eat?"

The terrier barked happily, as if it understood the words his owner had said. Nancy stood up and went to the kitchen, taking out some dog food for the little dog to eat. Pouring some into the bowl with the name "Togo" printed on it neatly, she placed it on the ground and watched as the young dog started eating it.

It was really hot outside. Nancy finished watering the flowers and the grass, then came into the air-conditioned living room, opening the book she had been reading. It was in the middle of June, just two weeks after solving a mystery with Frank and Joe in Miami. She called the case _Ocean of Deceit_. Frank and Joe Hardy were detectives who were also on summer vacation, like Nancy. They solved just as many mysteries as she did, and she worked with them on some occasions.

Nancy saw the mailperson put the letters into the mailbox right outside her house. Immediately, she went and took the mail. Opening the mailbox, she saw many bills, junk mails, and a letter addressed to her.

The sender's address was in Seattle. Nancy had a strange feeling that it was someone she knew. Then, she looked at the name of the sender. "Jenny Fontaine!"

Jennifer Fontaine was Nancy's friend from the time she entered first grade until the time she became an eighth grader. She moved to Seattle because of her parents' divorce and was taken by her mother, who lived in Seattle.

Excited, the girl detective opened the envelope when she got back inside her house. "Wow! An invitation and tickets to a concert?"

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Nancy immediately went and opened the door, and there, she saw the frowning face of a pretty eighteen-year-old girl with blonde hair and blue eyes. She had a slightly plump figure and was always trying her best to shave off some pounds off her body, mainly her legs and stomach. She was dressed lightly, with a short skirt and a T-shirt that revealed a little of her navel.

"Nancy Drew! We were waiting for thirty minutes for you to show up at my place! And I think I got more pimples on my face just by standing in the sun for so long! You know that Wednesday is a Shop At Mall Until You Drop day!" Bess Marvin said. "And George is still waiting in my car outside!"

Despite the name George, George Fayne was a hundred percent girl, even though her attitude and sense of fashion resembled that of a boy's, and she had been called tomboy ever since her preschool teacher saw her playing in the mud with all the boys while the girls, including young Bess and Nancy, watched in disgust. George was born with the name of Georgina. Her mother's name was Gina and her father had been born in Georgia, so they decided, after debating for a few days, to name her Georgina and not Georgia. The reason the name itself resembled so much of George was because her family always wanted a boy, and her grandfather had been neglecting any other name other than George, so the rest of the family decided to name her George. But, as the scan resort stated, the baby was a girl, and George's grandfather was so shocked he had a mild heart attack the very second he heard the news.

But now, George herself disliked the name Georgina, and her family agreed upon calling her George all the time instead of her given name.

Yawning, George watched as Bess went to ring the bell of Nancy's house. To tell the truth, she wasn't at all thrilled at her cousin's idea of having a Shop At Mall Until You Drop day every Wednesday. She enjoyed sports more than shopping, and she didn't feel like boring herself to death in the huge expensive flea market of useless junks. But she, of course, never said her thoughts out loud to Bess, thinking the statement might offend her.

"Sorry, Bess," Nancy apologized. "I forgot. But get this: I got a ticket to a concert!"

Bess gasped. "No way!"

"Yes way!" her friend said happily. "Jenny Fontaine invited me to a concert held in Seattle. Isn't it exciting?"

"Tell me all about it after we get to the mall," the blonde girl reminded.

In the River Heights Mall, the teenagers went to the shops that sold clothes with the newest style and enjoyed looking at the beautiful rings and necklaces displayed at the "Costless Jewel," a new jewelry shop opened at the exact place where Bess's favorite clothing store had been until a few weeks ago. The name of the store was "Looks Can Kill," which sold clothes with the latest trend at the cheapest price. But when shoppers were attracted to "Hot Girls' Fashion," it shut down.

"Do you remember Jenny Fontaine?" Nancy asked her friends.

George nodded. "She was really quiet and shy. It seems like she played violin and practiced three hours a day since the time she was in kindergarten!"

Bess said, "I loved the pieces she played at the school's talent show. It surprised everyone in the entire gymnasium!"

Nancy nodded, smiling. "And this Jenny sent me an invitation and tickets to a concert held in Seattle!"

"I don't want to go, to tell the truth," George said. "I was never a big fan of those squeaking instruments, like violins. It put me to sleep and makes my teeth grind."

Bess rolled her eyes at George. "You need to understand the arts, George. A little hobby that's not athletic can be fun, too, you know…"

George sneered. "Mom forced me to play violin when I was ten. I hated it so much I quitted after a month after I started playing it. I don't like that screeching sound it made. Blech!"

Bess sighed. Her cousin was a hopeless tomboy who didn't have anything in common with her. Nancy, on the other hand, enjoyed sports and music equally.

"Oh, come on, George," she said with a chuckle. "I remember taking some piano lessons when I was little, but I liked it."

"Well, piano sounds better than violin, I guess."

After the lengthy shopping spree, the girls finally decided to head home. Nancy said that she had two tickets more, so she asked if they wanted to come, too. Bess said yes to the offer, but George declined. She knew that by the time the concert started, she would be snoozing out loud in the audience. "Also, I need to prepare for River Heights Marathon coming next week. I need to train everyday to be on that marathon. It's really lucky I got picked to participate."

Bess chuckled. "Of course." She remembered that at the place where George bought her shoes, there was a sweepstakes offer for participating in the marathon. "I remember you buying a million shoes just to get the raffle tickets. And how lucky of you to be chosen among, what, forty people?"

George scowled. "There are more than merely forty people entering that sweepstakes. I think there were even a hundred of those tickets sitting at the bottom of the drawing box."

Nancy smiled. "Anyway, I guess this time, I'll be making the trip with Bess alone. Dad's too busy with his work, Hannah is away, and Ned is buried in research assignments and papers to write during the summer. It'll be fun, Bess!"

* * *

The two girls got to the airport at exactly seven o'clock in the morning. Bess was still yawning sleepily as the two girls got out of Nancy's blue convertible. It was a great day at River Heights, and George was feeling sorry for her cousin, who was missing a whole sunny day of fun and adventure. Bess ignored her comment, as usual. 

Opening the back trunk, Nancy sighed in mock despair. "Oh, heavens!" she said in overdramatic style. "How in the world will the plane fly with so many suitcases in its compartment?"

Bess grinned. "Hey, I brought only four suitcases, and that's a personal record for me. Do you know how many days we are staying in Seattle? Four days and three nights!"

Nancy looked at her friend. "So you need millions of dresses and shirts just for those four days? I mean, you brought a whole suitcase full of clothing for a day over at Seattle! I'll bet you took your entire closet."

Bess frowned. "Nah-uh! This is just a quarter of my entire closet."

"No wonder George almost went MIA when she ventured into your closet to borrow a shirt for the school dance because hers was too small for her," said the titian-haired girl. "Anyway, I'm sure we'll have a wonderful time over there. Just imagine! We'll be touring Seattle and listen to a concert every night!"

Bess nodded in agreement. "It was really nice of Jenny to send those tickets to us."

Inside the airport, the girls were surprised to see so many people.

It _is_ a vacation season, but people didn't have to _start_ a trip on the same day! Nancy thought.

The girls went over to the nearby machines and got themselves the tickets. Looking at the monitor, Nancy frowned. "Great. According to this chart, I'll be seated at 8B, and you at 9A. That means we won't be next to each other."

"It's okay," Bess said. "It's just four hours of flight to Chicago. Once we get there, we'll head for Seattle, which is seven hours from that city. If we're lucky, we'll be able to sit next to each other on the second flight."

The girls went to the security. After half an hour, they were at the waiting area for the next flight. Nancy and Bess sat down and looked at the time. It was still seven-forty, nearly thirty minutes early.

"I can't believe our flight had been full!" a male voice said from behind the girls.

"Yeah," another masculine voice said. This was a little deeper than the first. "We've been waiting for two hours for another flight."

"I'm really thankful they had two seats open. I got 9B. What did you get?"

"8A."

Nancy was suddenly aware of the seat numbers and the voices. The seats were right next to her seat and Bess's! And that voice, it sounded like…

The girl detective turned her head around, fully aware of who were standing there. As she saw the two familiar figures, her grin got even wider.

"I should've known," she said. "It's Frank and Joe Hardy!"

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**_Postscript: _Due to my starting a new year in high school, my update will not be as frequent as I wish. I may update this story every other week or every week depending on the work I get in high school. I hope you will read and enjoy this story as much as some of you have read and enjoyed the previous ones.**

**Preview for the next chapter: strange lady on the flight, rock star in mortal danger.  
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	2. Mystery Loves Company

**_Foreword: _As usual, the mystery deepens even before the murder occurs. Read and review, please!

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_**2**_

_**Mystery Loves Company**_

Frank Hardy was the first to turn around. He couldn't seem to believe his eyes. "Nancy! What brings you here?"

Nancy smiled. "An invitation, of course. A friend of ours is having a concert and we're invited to three consecutive nights of concerts! George couldn't come this time. Bess did." She turned to Joe. He was aware of her presence, too, and was looking at Bess, who also turned around.

"We were here because someone called us to be his bodyguard," Frank answered.

"Oh, really?" Nancy asked, surprised. "Who is that?"

"A guy named Jack Rocky," Frank answered.

Bess's eyes got wide. "Jack Rocky? That's the hottest rock singer these days! Why would he want you to be his guards?"

Joe shrugged. "He said his life was in danger somehow. Said someone was going to kill him."

Bess's expression changed. "Really? Why doesn't he just call the police?"

Frank was the one who answered. "The police didn't believe him, as usual. When he's a big super star like he is now, it's not unusual to get a few notes from fanatic fans. They've seen many threats sent to those people and none of them actually come true. So they aren't doing much of an investigation."

Nancy was deep in thought. "So are you going to be with him twenty-four seven?"

Joe shook his head. "No. We just need to stay close to him during the night. When I say night, I mean midnight till morning. He got us two rooms in the hotel adjacent to his house."

Nodding her head in understanding manner, the girl detective thought about where she and Bess were going to stay in. In the letter, Jenny stated that the girls were to stay in Colonial Hotel just minutes of driving away from the concert hall.

Just then, the announcement stated that the flight to Chicago just arrived. In the plane, Nancy sat next to Frank and Joe next to Bess. Bess seemed to like the companion, and she talked to him from the time they went on the plane. Joe seemed to be interested in Bess, and the two talked about many things.

Nancy and Frank were discussing the current mystery the Hardy brothers were working on. Frank was stubbornly refusing Nancy's help, and Nancy stated that she and Bess were on vacation, so she wouldn't be in the case unless the Hardys wanted her to.

Frank told the girl detective everything he knew from the time he got the letter.

It was just a week ago, and the Hardys were back from the beach in Bayport. Since Bayport, like River Heights, were next to the Atlantic Ocean, the detectives enjoyed swimming and getting a nice tan. Summer vacation could not get better for them.

Everything changed when Mrs. Hardy went to the mailbox and took out the mail for the day. She flipped through the bills with slight disgust and the women's magazine with delight. But there was something other than those mails put into the Hardys' mailbox. An unfamiliar beige envelope caught her attention, and the middle-aged mother of the two detectives quickly took it out and examined the senders' address.

"Seattle?" she muttered with wonder and worry. "To Frank and Joe?"

The woman immediately went into the house. The boys were in the kitchen taking out some cold sodas to cool them down from the heat. Inside the house, the air conditioning wasn't working. Just a few days ago, Mr. Hardy promised to call the repairing company, but he hadn't done so in over three days. The other Hardys, including Mrs. Hardy, Frank, Joe, and their aunt, Miss Gertrude Hardy, were mad at the delay at first, but had used to it and found ways to deal with the intense heat. The boys decided to go swimming more often, their mother went to the nearby supermarket, where the air conditioning was always on, and their aunt drove to the library more often than usual.

The rising gas price was a major pain, and Frank and Joe weren't allowed to use their car anymore, since they always were using up the gas and having to pump the gas in every three to four days. Because of this, the boys had begged their girlfriends, Callie Shaw for Frank and Iola Morton for Joe, to come pick them up to the beach. The two young couples agreed on a bargain: one time of picking the boys up meant one hour of dating time for the week.

Mrs. Hardy went to the boys and handed them the letter. Frank, who was making himself a sandwich, looked at the envelope with questioning look. Joe, who was drinking the soda, opened it using the kitchen scissors. Inside, there were a letter folded up and two airplane tickets to Seattle. Joe read the letter:

" 'Dear Frank and Joe,

" 'Hi, this is Jack Rocky, otherwise known as Brian McMillan. Do you remember me?'"

"Hey! That's Brian!" Frank interrupted, suddenly remembering the name. "He was one of Aunt Gertrude's friends' kids. I believe he's a nationally recognized rock star."

"Are you kidding?" Joe asked, not believing what Frank said. "Iola totally adores that guy! Well, not as much as me, but she says he is really something."

Frank grinned. "Let me see that." He then took the letter from his brother.

" 'I want you to come to Seattle for a few days next week. I want to hire you two as my guards. Well, I keep getting these weird messages threatening my life, like how I will die a terrible death, or something. That's why I want you to come here. I figured out that the sender sent the letter from Seattle, and I live in Seattle. Since I travel a lot around the globe, I'll only stay in my house for a few days, but I think the sender will kill me when I'm there.

" 'The police won't investigate just because there are many letters like this sent from crazy fans to stars and celebrities. If possible, I want you to come and investigate this for me.

" 'I know I can trust you because Miss Gertrude Hardy is one of my mom's best friends. I also read about your detective works on the newspaper. Please come next Friday to Seattle. I already enclosed two tickets for you. I'll be waiting at the Boeing Field/King County International Airport for you two to arrive.

" 'Sincerely,

" 'Brian McMillan, a.k.a. Jack Rocky.

" 'P.S. I'm sorry I can't put a phone number in here, since my phone broke recently and the new one won't arrive till the end of next week.

" 'P.P.S. Also enclosed is one of the threats I keep getting. I'll send it for you to examine. I hope you can solve this mystery soon. I have a feeling this is not just a message from a crazed fan…'"

Looking at his brother, Frank asked, "So, bro, what do you think?"

Joe smiled. "A new mystery just a week after we solved a new one; not bad for a detective agency!"

Frank managed a grin. He looked into the envelope again. There was a piece of paper in it. Opening it, he read a message made from letters cut out from magazines.

" 'You'll pay for it, Jack. You'll pay with your life.'"

The message was simple, yet Frank thought there was more meaning than meets the eye. He thought about it.

"I'm really worried about Brian—I mean, Jack—because these threats look pretty menacing."

"So who was the letter from?" a voice asked from behind them. They turned abruptly. It was Mrs. Hardy. "Well?"

Frank decided not to tell her about the mystery part. "It's from one of our old friends in Seattle. He says he wants us to come to his concert that's held in Seattle. Can we go?"

"Seattle? That's all the way across the States!" his mother answered in surprise. "Are you sure it's just a concert?"

Joe nodded. "Yeah. If it's okay, we'll stay there for a few days to look around Seattle."

Mrs. Hardy thought for a moment. "Okay, I guess. But your 'vacation' two weeks ago turned into a disaster. I just hope you are careful."

The boys smiled. "We will." But in their minds, they were sure this mystery was going to be rough. In fact, this could be one of the most exciting ones they've ever had!

Nancy Drew looked out the window of the airplane. The plane was taking off, and she could feel the uneasy sensation in her ears. She gulped a breath of air, and that sensation was gone. She looked down at her watch. Good. The flight was on time. If they were lucky, they would arrive there at night, just before the concert.

She was thinking about Seattle. Looking back, she didn't recall a mystery she actually solved in Seattle before! This could be another adventure she would have at a land unknown to her. The last case, which she called _Ocean of Deceit_, took place in Miami, Florida. She had been to that place before and was familiar with the food there. But Seattle was different; she had never traveled there. Now that she thought of it, the girl detective traveled to many different states already during her mystery-solving career. She just couldn't help but wonder if it was her destiny to solve mysteries and bring criminals to justice.

The River Heights Airport wasn't a big airport like the O'Hare, but it was big enough to bring the girl detective to many parts of the United States and more. Internationally, she had gone to England, Scotland, France, Turkey, and even Japan, Hong Kong, and Kenya! The most recent mystery she had solved outside of United States was _The Thirteenth Pearl_, but she knew she was going to travel out of the country sometime soon.

Nancy took out a notebook. Recently, she had used this notebook to write down notes and maps to help her solve the case. It helped her a lot when she was struggling to reveal the killer in her most recent mystery, which seemed to disappear into thin air, leaving Frank in the same room with the body. The killer was extremely smart, but Nancy was smarter, for she had revealed the truth and found evidence against the suspect as well. In her opinion, Nancy thought that detectives and criminals are two different kinds of people, but their intelligences were nearly the same. The more intelligent the criminal was, the more thorough his criminal plan would be, and the more intelligent the detective was, the faster she could reveal the criminal and put them into jail.

The girl detective closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened her eyes again, she saw the stewardess smiling as she asked her if she wanted anything to drink. Nancy asked for a cup of tea, and the lady opened the compartment and poured a cupful of tea with ice cubes floating on the surface. Nancy thanked her and took a sip. The stewardess asked the person sitting next to Nancy. For the first time, the girl detective turned toward the woman sitting beside her. She was a strong woman who seemed to be in her forties. Her hair was still brown with no trace of white in it.

"I would like some orange juice, please," the woman said. The stewardess gave her a cup of orange juice and left. After the stewardess was gone, the woman looked at Nancy and smiled.

"So, you are visiting Seattle, too, am I right?" she asked. Nancy nodded.

"I'm Matilda Fontaine. I'm Jennifer's mother."

Nancy's eyes got wide. "Oh, so you are going there to watch her perform, too?"

Mrs. Fontaine smiled. "Yes, I am. Being a violinist myself, I was the one who taught her to play violin. But when she got so well, I just had to find a good teacher for her."

"But why were you in River Heights?"

"I had to go here for a business meeting."

Nancy grinned. "I'm sure she's glad to see you."

After a pause, Mrs. Fontaine excused herself and went to the washroom. Closing the door as she got in, the woman washed her hand using the sink that was in the washroom. Bringing her face up, she looked at herself in the mirror. She grinned.

"Nancy Drew," she murmured to herself. "Well. This ought to be interesting…"

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**_Postscript: _Who is this mysterious lady who calls herself Jenny's mother? Who is sending threats to the rock star? Don't miss out the next installment of the story!**

**Keywords: the meeting, the threats, the accident **


	3. First Impressions

_**Foreword: **_**Because I didn't update last week, this update will be longer. This chapter introduces all the characters (or suspects **_hint-hint_**, so you might want to pay attention! Anyway, next chapter will be about the concert and the murder that occurs twenty miles away during the concert. The suspects' alibis are all solid, and nobody left the building at the time... More details are coming soon (hopefully next Thursday. If not, then the Thursday after that). More suspects, more suspense, more impossible crimes... Can Frank, Joe, and Nancy avoid all the red herrings and get to the real conclusion before the murderer strikes again?**

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**_**3**_

_**First Impressions**_

As the plane landed on O'Hare Airport a few hours later, the passengers moved out of the airport. Standing up, Nancy took her luggage. Frank took his. The detectives were now in Chicago. In an hour or so, they would go to another plane that would bring them to King County International Airport in Seattle.

The detectives got up from their seats just as everyone else was. After getting their luggage, they went out. In the airport, there were many people walking about. Because it was summer vacation, many college students were at one shop. Probably, they were on a class field trip. Nancy remembered the field trip she had with the entire class, including Bess and George, just a week after they graduated from River Heights High School.

Bess and Joe met Mrs. Fontaine, too, and had finished exchanging hellos and introductions. Mrs. Fontaine looked at her watch and gasped. "Oh, sorry. I have to go to the meeting. It'll start in less than an hour!"

The woman left the group and Nancy then asked what their next action was.

"Joe and I will head for our hotel and you for yours. We'll meet at the concert hall in half an hour. Then, we can go to Jack's house to ask him what was wrong," Frank said. The group then separated into two subgroups. The detectives went to get the cars they rented. The Hardys' car was a black Cadillac, and the girls' was a red Volkswagen. Getting into their own cars, the teams went to different road and headed toward their hotels.

Nancy and Bess arrived at their hotel in forty minutes. She looked at the three-storied hotel. It looked plain from outside, and inside, as the girls found out as they went inside, was quite luxurious. Golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling and there was an indoor pool and a billiard table right next to it. Bess smiled.

"I knew my swimwear was good for something!" she said.

Nancy rolled her eyes playfully and looked at the four suitcases her friend brought. "Which one has your swimsuit?"

Bess thought for a moment. "I forgot. Maybe I should look for it later. Anyway, we should go get the key to our room."

At the lobby, the girls asked for the key to their room. After given the key, the girls turned around.

"Oh! Nancy! Bess!" a woman's voice exclaimed.

Nancy and Bess saw Mrs. Fontaine. The lady was standing there with the suitcases she had brought to the plane. It was obvious that she didn't go to her room yet. But that made Nancy wonder. Where had she been all along?

"It's great to see that you and I are going to stay in the same hotel. What room did you get?"

"Uh… Room 203," Bess said after looking at the tag that was on the key.

"I got Room 115. The view isn't as nice as yours, but it'll do. At least I got a nonsmoking room. You know, even after a person leaves the room after smoking in it, I still smell the odor floating in the air. Don't you think so?"

Nancy smiled uncomfortably. This lady seemed to be friendly, but now she was just talkative, not to mention a little annoying.

"Well, we'll need to go back to our room now, Mrs. Fontaine," Nancy said. "It was great meeting you here."

"Bye, dear. See you at the concert hall!"

With those words, the woman went to the desk to get the key. Nancy and Bess quickly went to their room. Closing the door, Nancy sighed.

"Don't you think that lady is being a little too friendly?" the girl detective asked her companion. Bess nodded.

"She looks kind of eccentric to me."

Nancy didn't say this, but she secretly agreed. Ever since the group had met her, she had been feeling uncomfortable staying around the woman. Was it a gut instinct or an omen? She didn't know and didn't want to find out. That lady was Jennifer's mother, after all, and she didn't feel like doubting a friend's mother. But the way the woman smiled struck her as suspicious. It seemed like the lady was putting on an act. Sighing, Nancy kept thinking. Could Mrs. Fontaine be involved in the current case somehow? Or is she just an innocent character?

Nancy went to the sink in the hotel room. There were the complimentary facial soap, hand soap, and a bottle of conditioning shampoo. The titian-blonde detective made a face. She hated those kinds. She didn't know why someone would make a fusion of conditioner and shampoo? Each of them had important task to accomplish in order to make the hair clean and silky. Opening her bag, she took out two small bottles of shampoo and conditioner. Tossing the bottle of conditioning shampoo into the wastebasket, she placed the two new bottles on the basket. Then, unfolding the package of hand soap, she began washing her hands.

As she finished, the girl sleuth started unzipping her suitcase. Taking out her laptop, she set it onto the table and got on the Internet.

Bling!

Bess looked up. The computer just made a funny sound, so she looked at the screen. "Hey! Nancy, you got an E-mail!"

Nancy took out the computer mouse and plugged it into the computer. Then, she opened the mail. "Hey! It's from Dad!"

Bess's face turned into a frown. "You didn't tell your dad that you are on a case yet, did you?"

Nancy shook her head. "No. I wonder what this is about…"

She then read the mail:

" 'Dear Nancy,

" 'I want to reach one of my clients, Mrs. Zelda Mott, but her phone is not working and the e-mail account is unreachable. Since she is the manager of the orchestra your friend is in, I was hoping you could talk to her and tell her to call me back about the case she asked me to work on.

" 'Love,

" 'Your father.'"

* * *

The girls got out of the car just as they reached the concert hall. It was a huge five-storied building. There was an entrance on every wall. And right next to the east entrance was the poster. It was about the concerts that were held that night. From six to eight, the quartet would be performing. It was actually a unique concert: each person in the quartet would perform a solo, starting from the violin to the piano. In the quartet, there were a conductor, a violinist, a violist, a cellist, and a pianist. According to what Nancy heard, Jennifer was the first violinist. 

The Hardys' car appeared just when the girls got out of the car. Frank waved to them and signaled that they should follow him. So the girls did. The detectives headed north and, after half an hour, got to a two-storied house. It was the house of Jack Rocky. The teenagers went to the house and rang the doorbell. Jack answered it.

Grinning, the rock star said, "I'm glad you could come!"

Frank smiled. "Who wouldn't help a rock star in need?"

"And are these chicks your girlfriends?" Jack asked, looking at Nancy and Bess. "Boy, you sure have good taste! I don't think any of my fans are as cute as those two!"

Bess blushed. Nancy studied the rock star. He was a muscular twenty-three-year-old with brown eyes and piercing hazel eyes. He somehow reminded her of Ned Nickerson, her boyfriend. She thought he was quite handsome.

"No, no, nothing like that!" Frank said in a hurry, turning a little red. "These are my friends, who are also detectives. Well, at least this redhead is."

"Do you mind telling us when you got those letters?" asked Nancy, getting into business.

Jack looked around worriedly and told them that they should talk inside. He led them in. After bringing them each a cup of iced cocoa, he explained the situation:

It was just two weeks ago when Jack got the first letter. It didn't have a stamp, so he wondered who the sender could be. When he opened it, a black piece of paper with letters cut out from magazines appeared from inside the envelope. It said: "You'll pay with your life." And the next one he got was just two days after that. The second one said: "I'll make you play your last tune, Jack." The third one, which he received the same way just a week ago, was the one he had sent to the Hardys to examine. And the most recent one, which he got just yesterday, read: "MUSICIAN FROM THE GRAVE is out to get you." The first four words were capitalized, which meant they were emphasized strongly.

"Musician from the grave?" Bess asked in a shaky voice. "You mean, a musician who is now dead?"

Jack looked a little pale. "I think it's just a sick joke, but I want you to investigate this for me. I'm really nervous this person might be serious. If he or she is, then my life won't last long."

The detectives told him to stay at home so he would be safe. The singer hesitantly agreed. "We'll call if we get any clue," Joe said.

"Okay. My phone was fixed and you can call me at this number." Saying that, Jack scribbled his numbers on a piece of paper and handed it to Joe. "I sure wish you could come and tell me the case is solved anytime soon."

Nancy smiled. "We'll try our best."

* * *

The detectives drove to Jennifer's house. She opened the door, and when she saw the detectives, she smiled. "What a surprise! I didn't expect you to come so early!" 

Nancy chuckled. "I'm glad to see you here. Are you ready for the big night?"

Jennifer answered. "It's not that big anymore, actually. I've been in the quartet for quite a while now. If you want to meet the rest of the members, then you can come to the theater. I bet they are in there practicing."

"I met your mother on the plane," she added.

"Oh, yeah. She's really excited about this concert. We've been practicing for it for nearly two months!"

"I want to meet the rest of the musicians," Bess said excitedly. "Can we go now, please?"

Jennifer agreed. "Let's go. I have my car parked on the driveway."

"It's okay, you can come with Bess and me in our car," Nancy said.

At the theater, Jennifer guided the detectives to the practice room. Right in from the door stood a woman who seemed to be in her early twenties. She looked surprised to find the detectives standing there. "Um… May I help you?"

"Oh, this is Latty Meadow. She is the stage crew here," Jennifer said to the detectives.

"That's Leticia to you,"

There were three men and a woman. Each of them had their hand on either a viola, a cello, a piano, or a baton. The pianist was a woman, but the violist, cellist, and the conductor were men.

"Hi, Jenny!" the pianist said. She stopped playing and came to shake hands with Jennifer. She was about twenty-five and had long black dress on. "It's great to see you. You aren't nervous, are you?"

"No!" Jennifer said. "I'm so confident, I can perform right now."

"And you are…?" The pianist looked at Frank, Joe, Bess, and then Nancy.

"Oh, they are my friends." Turning to the detectives, Jennifer said, "These are the members. The violist is Abraham Connor. The cellist is Smith Wickliffe. The pianist is Katrina Berkeley. And the conductor is Luke Terrain. And Katrina, these are my friends Frank, Joe, Bess, and Nancy."

Katrina smiled. "Nice to meet you."

Just then, the door opened. A woman who was about forty years old came into the room. "Oh, hello," she said. "You are…?"

Nancy smiled. "You must be Mrs. Mott. I'm Nancy Drew."

The woman's eyebrows rose up slightly. "Nancy Drew…? You mean, you are the daughter of Mr. Carson Drew?"

Seeing Nancy nod, she looked nervously at the rest of the crowd. "Nancy… Could I talk to you privately?" Then, without listening for Nancy's answer, Mrs. Mott pulled the girl detective into a nearby practice room. Once inside, the woman closed the door and looked at Nancy. "I'm so glad you could come. My computer is out of order now and my phone is broken. I wanted to call Mr. Drew on my cell phone, but I lost Mr. Drew's phone number a long time ago. How is the case?"

"The case?" Nancy asked.

"Oh… You didn't come to tell me that the case was solved, did you?"

"No… Look, can you tell me what this case is about?"

The woman sighed. "Okay. I had a niece named Maria Voorhees. She was a worldly renowned pianist who killed herself in the house she owned. Because her parents were killed when she was a baby, I had raised her and taught her piano until I knew her talent wasn't something I could handle. She needed to be taught by a real professional. So she went out and found a house that was sold at a reasonable price just half an hour of driving away from the famous musical college. Also, it was quite isolated so she could practice all she wanted.

"But after a month, she died in her house by drinking poison. I don't know why she did that. She was like my own child even though I knew I wasn't her mother."

Nancy thought for a moment. "So you wanted my father to find out who made her commit suicide?"

Mrs. Mott nodded. "It just doesn't make sense that she killed herself. I mean, she had a bright future ahead of her. Her piano skill even surprised the professionals!"

Nancy paused for a moment. "Did she have any enemies?"

"I guess so… She did make a lot of enemies when she became the professor's apprentice. But I don't think they would want to make her commit suicide!"

"I don't, either, but human desire is a strange thing, Mrs. Mott. It can make people do unpredictable thing," Nancy said. She suddenly remembered her past two cases. Even though she tried hard to forget them, they keep coming back in her mind. The two most recent cases she had solved involved revenge. The culprit of the first case plotted revenge against Nancy and her father, while the culprit of the second case turned into a cold-blooded murderer because the person he loved got killed. It was just too much to bear. The girl detective just wished this case would not turn into a murder case, since she didn't want to face another tragedy from occurring ever again.

The young sleuth looked up and heard the door creak a little. Both of them turned around. Somehow, the door was opened without a noise, and someone was running away from the room.

"Oh no!" Nancy muttered. "Someone was out there listening to our conversation!"

* * *

_**Postscript: **_**The next chapter title will be: "Concert Begins."**

_The concert started, but Nancy and the Hardy boys were not aware of the real event that occurred that night... It was the prelude to a tragedy. Red herrings, false messages, and impossible murder all try to lead the detectives into the wrong solution. Will they be fooled by the traps, or will they find out the real "conductor" of the crime?_

_**P.S. **_**The trick, the killer, and the motive will all surprise you. Guaranteed!**_  
_


	4. Concert Begins

_**Foreword:**_** I'm so sorry for not keeping my promise! I got buried in my English writing assignments for the past two weeks and couldn't find any time to write my story! Anyway, here is the exciting new chapter (if I may say so myself) that has the detectives finding the dead body. Who could be the killer? Hints are going to be given out little by little from now on, and I promise you that each chapter has at least one hint about either who the killer could be or how he/she managed to kill the victim during the concert. Next chapter will be about the solid alibis the suspects have. Are they really solid, or is it some kind of trick? Read, enjoy, think about who the killer might be, and REVIEW, please!

* * *

**

_**4**_

_**Concert Begins**_

The titian-haired girl detective ran out of the room immediately. However, when she got to the corridor, nobody was there; the door leading to the fire exit was open.

"I guess he got away," Nancy muttered. She returned to the room where all the other people were in. Mrs. Mott was in there, looking a little worried. "It's nothing," Nancy said with a smile.

But she had to admit that the strange feeling inside her was not gone. Was she worrying too much, or was it her detective's instinct?

Nancy just decided that she was worrying too much. She was determined to have fun with her friends, and nothing would make her do otherwise.

* * *

"Mmm! I love a nice bowl of buttered popcorns!"

Bess shouted as she carried a bowl of popcorns she bought to her friends. Frank, Joe, and Nancy were there.

"What took you so long?" Joe asked playfully. "Deciding what drink to order, aren't you?"

Bess grinned. "Which do you think is better? The Diet Coke, Sprite, Seven-Up, or Pepsi?"

"I'd like the Pepsi," Frank said. "Diet Coke tastes disgusting!"

The girl detective smiled. "You can say that again!"

It was just ten minutes before the concert would start. The detectives had started to see crowds of people coming into the theater. There were at least a thousand people in the theater at that time. The detectives already bought their tickets and were waiting for the concert to start. As they went to the concert hall, Frank saw a person wearing a coat, a hat, and a pair of sunglasses. The person was waiting in line to buy a ticket.

"That's weird," he muttered. "It's so hot out here. Why is he wearing a coat?"

Frank looked at the person closely, but then a crowd of people blocked his view. But when the crowd was gone, so was the mysterious cloaked person. Surprised for a moment, Frank followed the rest of the detectives into the concert hall.

In the practice room, Jennifer Fontaine was getting ready to play the solo. Wearing a black dress, she looked at herself in the mirror. She then took the black velvet box that was in her bag. Opening it, she saw a glittering necklace with a sapphire. It was her birthstone, and she grinned as she put it on. It was as black as her dress, but was glittering even brightly. On the box were the words: "BM to JF with Love."

The applause arose as the young violinist appeared from behind the curtains. Nancy and the others had some of the best seats in the whole auditorium. Nancy looked around and saw Mrs. Fontaine just a few seats in front of them.

After stopping, and the applause ended, Jennifer began to play one of three pieces she was to perform. The first was by Vivaldi, the second by Mozart, and the last by Handel.

The girl's talent was reflected as she played vigorously the three pieces. She played with energy and passion, and before long, the fifteen minutes were over and the audience was clapping once again, but this time louder.

Frank, Joe, Bess, and Nancy all smiled and clapped along with the crowd. Nancy saw that Jennifer's mother was clapping with a big smile on her face.

As the first performer went backstage, the second one, who was Abrahan Connor, the violist, came onto the stage. Unlike Jennifer, his pieces had random tempo; at first it started slow, but then turned to a speedy piece that required both energy and talent. His performance lasted fifteen minutes as well.

Nancy and the others clapped with the crowd. But when the girl detective looked down, Mrs. Fontaine was gone.

"I wonder where she could've gone to?" she wondered.

The third performer was the cellist, Smith Wickliffe. He had slow, emotional pieces composed in three different eras of music; the first one was from baroque, the second classical, and the last romantic. Nancy noticed that Mrs. Fontaine was still gone.

There was a short intermission after the performance. Some of the audience walked

The fourth and the last musician to play was Katrina Berkeley, who was the pianist. She played a prelude by Rachmaninoff. This piece started slow and quiet but turned into a fast-paced one in the middle and ended slow bit loud and emotional. The second piece was a romance by Tchaikovsky that stayed slow and emotional from start to finish. The last one was a sonata by Beethoven that stayed quick-paced all the way. Nancy then noticed that Mrs. Fontaine had come back at the end of the performance. She guessed that the lady came back for the performance of the entire quartet.

Five people appeared from behind the curtains. The conductor faced the audience and bowed after the four performers sat down. Then, turning around, he waved his hand to get attention and swung it down, starting the first piece.

The thirty minutes quickly passed as the performers played the pieces. As the applause faded, the musicians bowed and went to the back of the stage.

The applause finally died out. As the people got up, the detectives decided to see the performers. Back in the practice room, the quartet was chatting with one another and having a drink. Seeing the detectives, Jennifer smiled. "Did you enjoy our performance?"

"Sure did," Bess said. "You were awesome!"

Suddenly, the door opened and the stagehand came into the room. "I'd like to leave now, if you don't mind," she said. Mrs. Mott nodded with a smile.

"Thank you so much for coming here tonight," the manager told Leticia. Leticia smiled at the others and went out to the hall.

"I'll be going, too, if you don't mind," said Abraham Connor, standing up. "I need to take some rest. I'm worn out after today's performance."

Smith Wickliffe, the cellist, nodded in agreement. "If you'll excuse me, I'll be heading home now. Goodnight."

There were only Jennifer, Katrina, Luke, and Mrs. Mott in the room with the detectives. After chatting for fifteen or so minutes, the others decided to go as well. As the performers went out to the hallways, Mrs. Mott looked at Nancy.

"Please, Nancy. If you find any clue, please tell me."

Nancy promised with a nod. "I'll call you as soon as I find out something relevant to the investigation."

The lady seemed assured and went to the parking lot where all the performers parked their cars.

"I think we should call Jack," Joe reminded, yawning. "Boy, that concert took more out of me that I thought!"

Joe's brother took out his cell phone and dialed the number of the rock star's home. Nobody answered. Worried, Frank called again. Only the answering machine answered the call. He was even more concerned now.

"Do you think we should go and check?" Nancy asked. She looked at the clock. It was already eight-thirty, thirty minutes after the concert had ended.

"Yeah," Joe responded. "I have a bad feeling about this."

After thirty minutes, the detectives arrived at Jack's house. The lights were still turned on and nobody seemed to be inside.

"Jack?" Frank called as he turned the knob. The front door was unlocked, so they went inside.

What the detectives found terrified them. The room was a complete mess! The bookshelf was on the ground with all the books lying face down beside the shelf, the telephone was upside down with the cord stretching three feet away from the phone, the books were everywhere, the guitar was broken in half, the picture frames on the table were broken, and the CDs the rock star listened to were thrown everywhere, making the room a shambles.

"This is horrible!" Bess shouted out in astonishment. "Who could've done this?"

"I don't know," Nancy said. "But we need to find Jack… Pronto!"

The four spread out and searched the building. Frank looked in the bedroom. Joe went to the second floor. Nancy went to the basement. Bess went to the bathroom.

The person who screamed two minutes later was Bess. She was slumped on the floor, her eyes wide with shock and fear. What she was staring at was the rock star's body, bound and gagged, in the bathtub.

Frank immediately felt for the pulse. The rock star was dead. Looking at the rigor mortis, the man had been dead for at least an hour. "He must've been here for at least an hour, two hours max."

"D…Do you think it was a robber who did this?" Bess asked, trembling in fear.

"No way," Joe said, entering the room.

Nancy was perplexed. "How do you know that it wasn't a robbery? Maybe the thief saw the man and bound and gagged him so he wouldn't escape. And since he already saw the thief's face, the thief decided to kill Jack. That's possible, isn't it?"

Joe shook his head. "You are missing an important fact here," he said. "Look at the scene of the crime if you need to."

Nancy and Bess were still confused. As the girls went to the room that they saw first as they entered the house. The bookshelf was turned down with all the books lying around the shelf, the phone was on the floor with the cord stretching over three feet, and the CDs were flung everywhere.

Suddenly, Nancy gasped. "You're right! There _is _something wrong here!"

Bess was still confused. "Okay, you guys. Tell me what's wrong."

Frank pointed out the phone. "See that bookshelf? The shelf itself is overturned but the books are not inside the shelf! Don't you think that's odd? If a thief was really trying to turn the shelf down, he wouldn't take all the books out first and then carefully place the shelf down."

Now Bess got what the others were saying. "I get it. So if the thief did this, then there would still be ten or so books in the shelf, since not all books would fall out when the shelf itself tumbles down."

Nancy then interrupted them. "Guys, sorry to interrupt, but we need to go and call the police. This is officially a murder investigation now, and we can't lost a minute!"

Nancy was afraid of this. She didn't want the investigation to turn into a murder case! She had to solve this and catch the killer—fast!

Frank called the police right away. A few minutes later, the place was surrounded by police officers collecting evidences and taking fingerprints.

* * *

Jennifer Fontaine was already in her home, combing her hair. As she looked back her shoulder, she saw a woman standing there. "Oh, I didn't know you were there, Mom."

Mrs. Fontaine smiled. "I was a little busy. I just got here right now. You did a great job out there on the stage!"

Jennifer smiled as well. She looked at her reflection in the mirror. "It was nothing."

"Are you tired? Maybe you need a good night's rest for tomorrow."

The young violinist nodded. "I'll be in bed shortly. Goodnight."

The woman exited the room and went to the kitchen. Jennifer kept combing her hair. After making sure that her mother was gone, she stopped. With a quiet but swift motion, she pulled the drawer next to her and got a velvet box.

Opening it, she gazed at the content in the box. There was a necklace inside, and the girl took it out and tried it on. After a few seconds, she smiled and took it off, placing it back into the small black box. Turning it around, she looked at the message:

"To JF, from BM, a.k.a. JR."

Jennifer placed the box back into the drawer and soundlessly closed it. Then, she changed into her nightgown and went to bed. She turned off the lights.

Mrs. Fontaine was looking into Jennifer's bedroom. After casting a cold look at her daughter, she went to her own room and closed the door after her. After that, there was complete silence in the house.

* * *

_**Postscript: **_**And, as always, the mystery thickens. Who is the mysterious BM and JR? What will the detectives face? Who can be the killer? To find out (or have a rough idea of) the answers, read the next chapter, titled: _Alibi Sonata._**

_Nancy was stressed. All the alibis seemed solid, and no one could have killed Jack in the middle of the concert that was held miles away from the scene of the crime! Was this an impossible murder or magic?_****


	5. Alibi Sonata

_**Foreword: **_**andy: Sorry to cause a confusion there. The case I mentioned was the one where a mysterious "fanatic" was sending the rock star strange yet chilling messages. Therefore, Nancy was suspecting that Mrs. Fontaine could be the one who sent the messages because she felt so uneasy around her and had a suspicion that the woman was putting up an act.**

**Anyway, here is the chapter in which I put tons of clues for you to find. They might be scattered here or there, but they are everywhere. Be careful especially on the scenes when the suspects mention their alibis. You might want to make a timeline of where they were from six to eight at night. Please read and review.**

**

* * *

**_**5**_

_**Alibi Sonata**_

Officer Barnhart looked at the body and sighed. "Never knew the fan was serious," he muttered, irritated. He had heard the complaints from the rock star but didn't know if the fan was just fooling around or was trying to scare the singer so he wouldn't produce as many albums as he had over the years. It turned out that the "fanatic" liked the singer so much he—or she—killed him in his house in the middle of the night.

The fifty-year-old officer gave another sigh as he turned around, only to face four naïve-looking youngsters looking at him with curiosity in their eyes shining brighter than the moon does in the town from where he came.

"Can I…ah…help you fellows?"

The girl with reddish blonde hair spoke first. "Yes. We need to know the time Jack was killed."

"Well!" Barnhart said with an expression of mock surprise. "And who might you be, young lady?"

"We're Jack's friends and were hired to do some investigative work on the person who keeps sending Jack these weird threats."

"Hmph! Look at the body yourselves, if you dare. The victim was strangled to death with a rope-like object. You can see the faint blue line on his neck. And according to the report, he could have been killed anytime from six and eight o'clock."

Nancy thought. Six to eight would mean that he was killed right in the middle of the concert. So that at least erased the people at the theater, who had alibis as far as she knew. She turned toward Frank and Joe. "What do you think?"

Frank looked at the scene of the crime. The body had already been removed to the station. He noticed that the shower curtain had been drawn back, and that was what caused Bess to find the body so quickly. Then, he noticed that the door was facing the shower curtain, and to the left of the door was a mirror. Looking into the tub, he noticed that it was completely dry. The drain had been plugged with an old-fashioned rubber plug with a chain attached. Aside from a few strands of hair, the tub was clean. That made the eighteen-year-old detective wonder.

Joe looked at the living room. Something in the room didn't seem right, and he knew it wasn't just a simple case of robbery.

As he walked toward the living room, Joe stepped on something small and thin. He looked down and saw a small notebook with black leather. The cover had the word "Schedule" printed on it. Picking it up with his gloved hand, the young sleuth looked at it. He then opened the notebook to the page where the victim had last written in. What he saw surprised him.

"Did you find anything?" Nancy asked. She was followed by the officer, Frank, and Bess.

When Joe showed the list to her, she gasped. "It… it can't be!"

At the top of the page was the date, and under that was the list:

"To-Do List: 10 AM, with Jenny Fontaine (give her you-know-what); 1 PM, with Abe Connor (payment); 1:45 PM, with Kat Berkeley (tomorrow's date); 3 PM, with Luke Terrain (about my new album); 4 PM, with Latty Meadow (call her if she doesn't come!); 5:10 PM with Smith Wickliffe (re: Kat); 9 PM, call Mrs. Mott (concert appt)."

Nancy could feel the grin on Officer Barnhart's face. "Well, well, well! Looks to me like I finally have the list of suspects!"

* * *

Everyone was called to the house. Jenny, Abraham, Smith, Katrina, Luke, Leticia, and Mrs. Mott were there. Mrs. Fontaine accompanied Jenny. All seven of them looked at the detectives and the officer a look of confusion. 

"Is what you told us over the phone true?" Katrina asked, holding her breath, disbelieving the fact that Jack was dead.

"Yes, ma'am," the officer responded. "And we'd like to know where you've been from six to eight o'clock."

Leticia answered, "Why, that's the time when we were performing at the concert hall thirty miles from here. I don't think you'd need to ask us about our alibis when we clearly have tight ones and could not possibly come here in less than thirty minutes!"

Smith agreed. "She's right. We all know that none of us were left alone for more than forty minutes at the most. In that time, we can't make it back to the concert hall in time for our performances!"

Officer Barnhart, looking slightly irritated, held up his hands. "Please, people. Tell me the answers to my question."

Jennifer sighed. "All right. I was the first one to perform our solos. My performance lasted fifteen minutes at the most, and I went back to the practice room that was assigned to me to take rest."

"Practice room?"

"Yes," Abraham answered. "Each of us is assigned a room to stay in when the others are performing. That way, we wouldn't be disturbed by each other's practicing their own instruments at the same time."

The officer nodded. "Miss Fontaine, is there a person who saw you in your practice room from six-fifteen to six-fifteen? I believe there was a fifteen-minute intermission during the performance."

Jennifer nodded. "I had the solo from six to six-fifteen. Then, I went to the room to rest for thirty minutes. Then, I went outside and saw Katrina getting ready for her performance. It was just before the intermission, so we talked from six forty-five to seven, when she left to perform on stage. Then, I waited for fifteen minutes, then went to the stage to play with the others."

"So can you confirm her alibi, Miss Berkeley?" the officer asked Katrina. She nodded.

The next to talk was Abraham Connor. "I was resting in the practice room for fifteen minutes when Jennifer was playing. I then went out to play my solos. That lasted fifteen minutes as well. I came back and stayed in the practice room for fifteen minutes. When it was intermission, I got out and talked to Smith for the entire time, right after his solo performance."

Smith added, "And my alibi will be solid, too, since my solo was from six-thirty to six forty-five. Therefore, I have solid alibi from six thirty to seven o'clock."

Officer Barnhart was jotting all these down onto his notebook.

"So, it's your turn now, Miss Berkeley."

Katrina fumbled with her words before finally saying, "I…I was alone from the beginning of the concert to the intermission. I talked with Jennifer for fifteen minutes, then went to perform."

"Why were you out in the hallway?" Officer Barnhart asked, suspicious.

"Oh, I was just getting out of the dusty room to get some air, that's all."

The next one to be interrogated was the conductor, Luke Terrain. He touched his glasses before speaking: "I stayed in the resting room until six-fifteen. I became thirsty, so I went outside to buy something to drink. Let's see… the store I went to was right around the corner, and I went there to buy a can of Pepsi. Check the video camera there; I'm sure you'll see me in line at around six-twenty."

"Go to the store he just mentioned and check the alibi," Officer Barnhart said to the nearby officer who just came into the room.

"All right," he said, then went out to his car.

Nancy didn't think it was necessary for him to go to the store, since if Luke was lying, then he would never tell a lie that would be found out later.

The next one was Leticia Meadows. Fidgeting with her auburn hair, she said, "I was in the hallways cleaning up until Smith's performance started. I then brought unneeded instruments to the storage located at the back of the concert hall. When I got there, I saw Mrs. Mott and talked to her awhile."

"I can confirm that," Mrs. Mott said. "She was carrying the box that contained a tuba to the storage room."

"Where is this storage room?" the officer asked.

"If you went to the parking lot that is specially preserved for the performers and went through the double-door, which is the back entrance of the building, you'd see the door of the storage room to your right. I saw Leticia turning around the corner to the hallway leading to the storage room and she called to me. We talked for a little while, and then left. I think the time was from six-thirty to six-forty."

Frank was noting all these down in his mind. So, he thought, Mrs. Mott also has a solid alibi until six-forty.

"What about after that?" Joe asked Mrs. Mott.

"Oh… I was standing outside the door to the concert hall, listening to the music from six forty-five. I went out to nearby store to get something to drink, just like Luke. I think it was at seven-fifteen. There is only one store around here, so you can go there to check if you'd like. I then went back to the concert hall to listen to the music."

Mrs. Fontaine seemed worried. "Why are you asking questions like that? Do you think the murderer is among us?"

Officer Barnhart seemed hesitant to reply. "I—I can't say that now, ma'am."

Nancy looked at Mrs. Fontaine's expression. She looked concerned enough, but this could be an act. All of her actions could be an act. Something in her mind told her to keep an eye on the lady.

Then, the girl detective remembered how Mrs. Fontaine stayed in her seat during her daughter's solo but left until the intermission, which was from seven to seven-fifteen. Then, she stayed to listen to the entire quartet. That meant that she only had forty-five minutes, which was impossible for her to go to and fro the victim's house. In other words, her alibi was airtight.

But, Nancy wondered, why did she leave in the first place? If she just wanted to listen to her daughter's performance, then why did she come back right before the intermission and not after? Why does she look like she has something to hide from me? And, most important of all, is she connected in the murder in any way?

The girl sleuth's mind was then put back to the alibis.

All the alibis seem solid, she thought. So does this mean that the killer is not in this group of seven suspects? Or is the killer really there amongst them? If so, who is the killer and how did he or she create such a perfect, flawless alibi? Can this be a trick, or magic?

Now, the case of threatened rock star turned into the murder of threatened rock star in just matter of hours. This was not what she had expected at all. She just wanted a single case to keep her occupied with the Hardys, but now there were two mysteries. The threat must have come from the killer, but why did he or she send such queer letters to frighten the popular rock singer? What did the killer gain by that?

There must be a reason, she thought. There has to be one!

Bess looked at Nancy, concerned. "Do you think we should call your dad to let him know about this?"

Nancy shook her head vigorously. "No, Bess! You know how Dad will react; if we say anything about our investigating a murder crime, then he would have a cow and pull us out of this case so fast our heads will be spinning. I have to solve this case; one of my friends is a suspect!"

Bess nodded. Nancy noticed that her friend was smiling. "I knew you'd say that! That was what you said when Frank was framed, remember?"

Suddenly, Nancy could feel herself blushing. It was true; she was determined to clear Frank's name after he was found in a locked room with nobody other than the victim, who was truck on his head and lay there, dead. Frank held the murder weapon, and things couldn't have been any worse.

Nancy looked at Frank. Could he be coming up with a conclusion of his own, or was he as baffled as she was?

The killer stared at the girl detective with an outward look of concern, but the satisfaction in his mind was unbearably pleasing.

_She'll never find out_, the murderer thought, looking at the innocent suspects that surrounded him.

_My plan is perfect! There is no way my trick will be revealed. It was careless of me to leave his notebook lying on the floor like that, but the police will never suspect that I was the killer…_

Observing Officer Barnhart, Frank, Joe, Bess, and Nancy, the murderer laughed in his mind.

_Even if you were as smart as I think you are, you'll never reach the real conclusion, for I have a trap of my own, waiting for you to fall in…_

He smiled. The smile was menacing, but it was too slight for the others to notice.

_This is my challenge to you, detectives. Try and catch me if you can. But my plan is not over yet, and I'm not planning to be caught until I finish off one more person as part of my revenge.

* * *

**Postscript: **_**The next chapter will be about how Maria Voorhees, the dead pianist, died in her mansion, titled: _Requiem in Memory:_**

_Nancy noticed that Bess wasn't the only one looking at her. Immediately grabbing the curtain, the girl detective opened it forcefully, but the shadow disappeared into the dark._

_"What happened?" Bess asked, concerned._

_Nancy closed the curtains. "We've been followed." _**  
**


	6. Final Requiem

_**Foreword: **_**Here is another update for this week. I'm almost halfway there and am planning to make this story fourteen chapters long. I already have in my mind not only the ending of the story but also the next mystery that I will write. I will start to scatter clues about the person who will appear in the next story. After reading a parody of the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Super Mystery parody published here in FanFiction, I started to wonder if I followed the old-fashioned storyline too much. Therefore, the next mystery will be nothing like the three mysteries that I have written so far, with more character development. I'll tell you where I hid the clues when I finish the last chapter. Here is the newest chapter that goes into detail about the mysterious Maria Voorhees that appeared at the beginning of the story. Enjoy and review, please!**

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* * *

**_**6**_

_**Final Requiem**_

Maria Voorhees was sitting by her beloved grand piano. The weather outside was ugly. Thunders roared everywhere, from the distant sea in the horizon to the clouds floating menacingly just over the house in which the young pianist lived. Lightning would strike once in a short while as Maria played her favorite piece: Requiem by Mozart, arranged especially for a piano solo. She didn't care what the weather was outside; it could be sunny and hot, it could be cold and snowing, it could be hazy and mystifying, or it could be as horrible and frightening as that night. She accepted nature as a huge chorus of eclectic voices singing arias around her in the most unorganized of style. The bass would be the sound of the waves crashing into the cliff on which her house stood. The tenor would be the lightening that appeared once in a while, falling onto a tree far or near. The alto would be the sound the raindrops make as they hit the windowpane one by one and falling down into the violent blue oceans below. And the soprano, of course, would be her music. Her piano would produce the most beautiful of all parts in a choir and soothe the listeners, if there were anyone nearby to listen to her fine playing at all. It was she who lived in the majestic house. And she was the only one, with nobody living near and her neighbors would be miles away in a nearby town, even though she didn't consider it near at all. She would play; she would play until her fingers ached; she would play until her head was a daze; she would play until the lightning would stop; she would play until the thunder ceased—in short, she would play until the end of time, the end of all eternity and the mysterious presence called music that had existed for millennia after millennia, played with vigor and love by people who made music their way of life, their way to express themselves, their way to survive.

It was thought that she would never cease playing her piano. However, she did, eternally.

The young pianist passed away one summer morning after taking an overdose of cyanide. Her body was found by her aunt, who happened to come to her house only two hours after her death.

The exact reason she committed suicide wasn't known; she got accepted into a prestigious school of music and passed with a magnificent score. Her future was bright, her past a glamour. She was believed to be the best pianist of all times. Therefore, it wasn't of any surprise to say that people were awestruck to hear of her death. She wasn't supposed to die; she was supposed to live and play for the world. She was supposed to inspire the world and billions who lived in it.

Nancy Drew and Bess Marvin were in their hotel room. Nancy was staring at the notes she took at the scene of the crime and Bess was deciding which shirt to wear for the next day. Nancy scribbled something on a piece of paper, shook her head, crumbled up the paper, and threw it into the basket without looking up. The crumbled sheet of paper touched the top of the trashbin, rolled around the rim for a second or so, and went in without making a sound, for there were many more crumbled sheets of paper in it. All those sheets of paper contained the girl detective's note on how the impossible alibi was gained, but she rejected as soon as she looked at it after vigorously scribbling her ideas onto the paper.

Bess was humming to herself as she picked up a shirt from her suitcase, holding it in front of her as she stood in front of a mirror. Then, with a sigh of rejection, she would toss the shirt into her suitcase and take another one out. She already went through two of her four suitcases, and she was still deciding upon which of the ten yellow shirts would match her yellow skirt. Because she learned painting when she was very young, the girl had a keen sense in color and knew which shade of a certain matched another color and which did not. She threw away her love of painting, though, after knowing that painting didn't suit her when she read about how Van Gough cut his ear off and shot himself before finally becoming famous.

In short, the two girls were doing different things and didn't even bother to disturb each other.

"Did the killer kill Jack first, then heated up the heater, warming up the body and therefore confuse the police?" Nancy asked herself. Then, she shook her head. "That wouldn't be possible, since the officer said that the heater was turned off the entire time and the fireplace hasn't been used for a long time, which was normal."

Then, a thought occurred to her. "Did the killer some how shortened the distance from the concert hall to the victim's house?"

She took out the map of the area. The address of Jack's house was 17499 Third Avenue, Bothell. She found the Rhody Ridge County Arboretum. The arboretum was less than a mile from the victim's house. The girl detective then traced the road they went to get there and measured the distance from the house to the concert hall. The concert hall's address was 1150 One-Fourteenth Avenue, Bellevue, and the girl detective found out that they were exactly twenty-one miles apart from each other, therefore taking roughly thirty minutes to get there from the concert hall, and she could find no shortcut.

"A dead end," she muttered, throwing her pencil after aiming it at the trash bin.

She missed.

* * *

Frank Hardy sat on his bed, thinking. Joe was reading a book on the bed next to his brother's. Joe looked up. Frank seemed to be deep in thought. 

"What's up, bro?" he called, closing his book.

Frank didn't answer.

"The case?" Joe asked.

His brother nodded. "It's just way too complicated. I'm sure that the killer is one of the seven suspects, but I don't know who or how the person killed Jack when all the suspects were miles away from the scene of the crime. It just doesn't add up."

Joe looked at the cover of his book and thought for a moment. "What about magic?"

Frank turned around, facing his brother. "What?"

"Magic. You know… the stuff that makes things disappear or reappear or go up in flames and reappear unharmed or cut a person in half and then connect him or her, that sort of stuff."

Frank rolled his eyes. "Joe, you know that magic has a trick behind it. For example, the trick for cutting a person in half and reconnecting him or—in most cases of magic shows—her is putting two people into the same box. When the girl gets in, she sticks out her head and the other girl in the box sticks out her legs. Then, when the magician—in most cases is a hunky man whom women adore—cuts the box in half, the girls are both unharmed."

Opening his book again, Joe grinned. "Yeah. So do you think there's a trick involved in this case as well?"

Frank stopped. He hadn't thought of that. "But…" he started. "I don't think there's a trick that lets a person kill another person from distance, unless that killer used an accomplice…"

Joe started reading the book. "Uh-huh. You know, Houdini escaped from the most inescapable situations and accomplished the impossible. Do you think the killer did the same?"

This made Frank frown. "I just don't get it," he muttered. "I just don't get it."

"Come on, this isn't the first mystery you solved," said Joe encouragingly. "I know that you can solve this one. You have the brains; I got the muscles."

Frank rolled his eyes. "Okay, Joe. Your muscles attracted Iola, all right."

Joe added, "And my looks."

Frank made a motion of throwing up. "Please! You're so full of yourself."

"It's called self-esteem, big bro."

The older Hardy looked at the alibi timeline he jotted down. "At six, Jennifer was performing and Mrs. Fontaine was listening to her playing. At six-fifteen, Abraham was performing and Luke went out to buy a drink. At six-thirty, Smith performed and Leticia brought unnecessary instruments to back of concert hall. At six forty-five, Jennifer talked with Katrina, Abraham talked to Smith, and Leticia talked to Mrs. Mott. Therefore, the only people who didn't have a solid alibi at that time were Luke and Mrs. Fontaine, as Nancy told me before. And then, at seven, Katrina performed and Mrs. Fontaine came back to listen to the, once again. At seven-fifteen, all members of the quartet and the conductor were there, so their alibis are solid then. And Mrs. Mott was seen at the local store buying a drink."

Frank then groaned. "It's way too complicated!"

Joe looked at the notes his brother took at the crime scene. "Hmm…"

* * *

Nancy sighed. Then, she noticed that she hadn't even eaten dinner yet. "Because of all these excitements, I forgot that I'm hungry," she said with a grin. "We ate lunch at three, and now it's nine. Should we go to a nearby store to buy something to eat?" 

"Or better yet," said Bess. She held out what she was reading. "I found this really fantastic restaurant on this magazine. I think we should go there. What do you think?"

"What do they serve?"

"Steak, fish, poultry, salads, pizza, burgers… You name it. In fact, the name of the restaurant is 'Your Choice Bistro'!"

Nancy chuckled. "Okay, Bess. That sounds great. Let's go!"

The girls sat down right by the window. In the restaurant, all the windows had curtains, and the curtains of the window the girls sat by were closed. Nancy and Bess each ordered a dinner combo and waited for the waiter to come back with the dishes.

"Oh, I need to call George to see how she's doing," Nancy muttered. She then turned around to her purse. After getting her cell phone, she once again turned toward Bess. But this time, Bess wasn't the only one looking at her.

Nancy saw a pair of eyes staring at her. With a shudder, Nancy immediately opened up the curtains. The figure was gone.

"What's up?" Bess asked, concerned.

Nancy closed the curtains. "We've been followed."

Bess gasped. "Did you see who it was?"

Nancy shook her head. "But I have a hunch that the we'll be seeing that person again. All I know is that the person used a black hat and a handkerchief of some sort to hide his or her face. I couldn't even tell if it was a man or woman!"

The dinner arrived, and the girls gratefully dug in. After eating, Nancy remembered that she was planning to call George. Taking her cell phone, the redheaded girl dialed her friend's cell phone number and waited until an energetic voice came from the other side of the line. "Hey, Nance!"

Grinning, Nancy asked, "How was the marathon?"

"Great!" George said breathlessly. "I even met Timmy Lasso!"

"Really?" Nancy asked in astonishment. "_The _Timmy Lasso? The three-time winner of the Annual National Marathon Association Competition?"

George seemed too excited to answer. "Yes!" she cried in joy after a while. "That's Timmy Lasso, also known as the Beagle, who won three consecutive tournaments!"

Bess heard the name and immediately stood up and took the phone from Nancy. "George!" she called. "Did you get his autograph?"

George again answered yes, and Nancy could imagine her friend standing there with the autograph of her favorite athlete in her hands. "So," George then asked as Nancy took the phone from Bess, "how are things going over there?"

"Good and bad, depending on what you're asking."

"What do you mean?"

Nancy explained everything that had happened so far. George listened, obviously astounded.

"Nancy, you either find trouble everywhere or trouble finds you," she commented.

After a few more minutes of talking, the girl detective hung up. She then noticed that she received a new mail. Opening it, she read the message:

"Those who seek the truth will be buried by the MUSICIAN FROM THE GRAVE."

* * *

**_Postscript: _Who sent the threatening message? What is on Joe's mind? Put in mind that there is one important clue introduced in here, if you can find it. I'll tell you the clue again later in the story and how it's important. The next chapter is titled: _Tragedy Under the Moonlight._**

**_Sneak Preview: _**

_A hooded figure came into the room in which Nancy was kept. As the girl detective tried desperately to free herself, the figure silently brought up the scythe, which reflected her horrified face._  



	7. Tragedy Under the Moonlight

_**Foreword: **_**Another week has passed, and here is another shocking update. As I said before, there are many small clues scattered throughout the story that will help you catch the killer. In this chapter, the killer makes another move. Who will be killed? I'm sorry for the confusion in Chapter 3; I meant "quartet" but put "quintet" in that chapter, for some strange reason. Quartet is when four instruments are used, and quintet requires five instruments. I guess my mind wasn't so clear then. Anyway, my newest chapter might shock some of you. I promise that the next seven chapters will go really, really fast and action-packed. If you enjoy my story, then please post a review. If you hated it, then please post a review stating the places I can work on and fix the next time I write another novel. Enjoy, and please review.**

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**_**7**_

_**Tragedy Under the Moonlight**_

Bess almost screamed as she saw the e-mail. The reason wasn't only because of the message, but also because of the image that was placed right under it. There was a chilling image of a black skull that seemed to smile at them from inside the screen.

Nancy immediately checked who sent the e-mail. As she saw the sender's address, her blood turned cold.

"I can't believe it," she muttered.

"Who is this from?" asked Bess.

"It's from…Jack Rocky."

Bess was horrified. "Do you mean that a dead person sent you an e-mail?"

Nancy shook her head. "Do you remember when Jack said that his phone wouldn't arrive for a few more weeks?"

Bess nodded. "Wait! Then, Jack didn't have a phone!"

Again, the girl detective shook her head. "He did have one for private use, with different phone number than his other one. I think this is the phone. I guess he didn't notice that the blackmailer stole his cell phone and assumed it was lost and broken, then ordered a new one, only to ignore the fact that his old phone was still usable."

This made the blonde girl feel better. "So who is this person?"

"Must be the killer or blackmailer or both, if the blackmailer killed Jack. I have a feeling that they are one person."

The two girls went back to their hotel room and went to bed after taking a shower. Nancy noticed that it was already eleven o'clock. As soon as she put her head down onto the pillow, she was fast asleep.

After a long while, the girl detective noticed that she couldn't move her hands and legs. When she came to, Nancy discovered that she was bound. Trying to speak, she opened her mouth, but there was a scarf covering it.

As the eighteen-year-old struggled to free herself, a hooded figure wearing a cloak came into the dark room in which she was kept. The figure held a scythe that reflected Nancy's horrified face. The dim light from the lit candles just made the circumstance worse. The hooded figure then raised the scythe. As he did so, the hood fell off, revealing a face.

The head of the figure was actually a skull, with no skin or hair, just plain, evil-looking skull that seemed to grin in the dim candlelight.

With a gasp, Nancy woke up, finding herself in her hotel room. She was in her bed, and the bright summer morning sunlight shone through the curtains and into the room. Bess was still asleep in her bed. The electronic alarm clock said that it was eight o'clock.

Lazily, the girl detective got out of her bed and went to get herself dressed. She noticed that the girls were meeting with the Hardys at eight-fifteen. With a gasp, Nancy went to Bess. Waking her friend up, the girl detective then went to brush her hair, leaving her friend to yawn and stretch in her bed, not knowing what was the matter.

"Hurry, Bess!" she said. "We're meeting Frank and Joe in fifteen minutes. They said that they would be coming."

Bess hastily dressed herself and opened her suitcase. She then crossed her arm in front of her chest and thought: what should she wear today?

Just then, when Bess decided to wear a light pink shirt with her jeans, there was a tap on the door. Nancy opened it. Outside, there stood two teenage boys, the taller having brown hair and the shorter blond hair.

"Coming to eat breakfast?" Frank asked with a smile.

Nancy nodded. "Glad to."

The detectives went out to the car in which the boys came in. Bess showed her book to the boys, and the foursome decided to eat at a small local restaurant that served unique local foods and cuisine.

After the hearty breakfast, the detectives went to many tourist spots in Seattle, including Museum of Flight, Museum of Glass, Museum of History and Industry, and the Henry Art Gallery. The detectives then went to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame.

"This reminds me of our dear buddy Tom Swift," Frank said with a grin. "And I'm sure he's out there somewhere, inventing some crazy inventions and getting in trouble this very moment."

After visiting many places in Seattle, the detectives noticed that it was already five o'clock. They went straight to Jennifer's house.

The sound of violin could be heard from outside Jennifer's residence. As Nancy knocked on the door, Mrs. Fontaine opened the door. When she saw the detectives, she smiled. "Well, what can I do for you?"

"We'd like to see Jenny," Bess answered, "if we're not interrupting her practice."

Mrs. Fontaine shook her head. "No, you're not interrupting her practice. I think a day off might be good for her, since she always practice so hard all the time."

The detectives were led to a large room. In it were a grand piano, a couple of bookshelves filled with what Nancy thought was the music scores, and a huge window that covered the entire wall and showed them the scene outside.

In the middle of the room was Jennifer, practicing her violin and not noticing the detectives until she stopped and turned around. Surprised, she the smiled. "Hi, guys! I'm so glad you came!"

Frank asked, "How come?"

"I just got a phone call from Katrina—you know, the pianist—and she invited me to a party at her house, with all the other members."

"That's nice," Nancy said.

"And I'd like to invite you as well. She said, 'The more the merrier!' And also, you'll be able to hear us practice for our next concert, which will be next week."

Joe grinned. "All right! I'm glad to have time off from investigation works!"

As the teenagers departed, Mrs. Fontaine waved her hand. "Have a nice time!" she called after them. When the car turned around the corner and vanished, she turned around and went back into the house. Inside, she went to her computer and turned the switch on. Using her mouse, she clicked on a certain icon on the screen of the computer.

Bling! "Type your password, please," came an electronic voice. The woman typed a few letters and numbers with such speed that if a person was next to her, he wouldn't be able to see what she typed. After pressing the enter button, the screen changed and a new window appeared in the display. It was a list of files. Mrs. Fontaine dragged the bar at the rightmost part of the window down and came to the last file in the list. It was labeled Jack Rocky. She clicked on the folder, and after a second, a new window appeared. The top of the window showed these words: Brian McMillan, a.k.a. Jack Rocky.

The detectives and the musician came to a large house in a suburb of Seattle, about forty minutes of driving from Jennifer's residence. A woman with dashing blonde hair opened the door as the guests arrived. "I'm so glad you came!" Katrina said. "Come on in! The others are already here!"

Stepping inside, the detectives noticed that her house was even larger than Jennifer's. As the teenagers stepped into the living room, they saw the other guests. Abraham was near the window, talking with Smith and Luke.

"Where are Leticia and Mrs. Mott?" asked Nancy.

Katrina smiled. "They're in the kitchen preparing the dinner. Mrs. Mott is a wonderful cook, actually, and Latty has her magical touch that makes any bland dish a culinary pearl of art. And," she giggled, "you know how bad those men cook; they come here mainly to eat something decent once in a while."

Bess giggled also. "But why doesn't Leticia like it when people call her Latty?"

Katrina shrugged. "I don't know. She once told us that Latty makes her sound so immature and naïve. I didn't think so and thought that Latty was a cool name. So we decided to call her Latty when everyone not in the quartet would call her Leticia."

Bess looked at the men who were talking. "I assume they aren't married?"

Katrina shook her head. "They are in their mid-twenties, but they are way too busy to date anyone. Except, of course…" She pointed to Smith. "He was my boyfriend for five years."

Nancy's gaze went to Smith. "Why…um…did you split up?"

"I guess he was just too childish. I mean, he was really selfish at times and I didn't feel like staying with him. So I started dating Jack."

"Jack?" Bess asked, surprised. "You mean…"

"I mean that I started going out with Jack. He was nice, but I then noticed that I wasn't fit for him, after what had happened…" Katrina paused.

"What happened?"

"Oh, nothing," the lady said, suddenly realizing what she had said. "Let's go to the dining room. I think I smell prepared food in there!"

Sure enough, the table was topped with at least five different dishes, each with different ingredient and scent. The aroma made Nancy realize that she didn't have dinner yet. As the three men came into the room, the dining room was quickly filled, and after a short while, the table was cleaned and everyone satisfied with the meal.

"That was awesome!" Bess complimented.

"Thanks," said Leticia, taking the empty dishes back into the kitchen. "The dessert will be out soon."

The dessert was then passed, and the guests finished it in a few minutes. Katrina stood up and looked at her guests. "Okay, we'll be practicing in ten minutes. Let's show these young detectives a concert of their lives!"

Frank looked on as the people stood up and went to the living room. Katrina looked at the clock. It was close to eight o'clock. Without a word, she went to the hallway leading away from the living room.

"Let's go see those quartet perform!" Bess said as she tugged on Nancy's arm.

* * *

Katrina went into her practice hall, where a grand piano was placed. The moonlight poured into the dark room. Raising the cover of her keyboard, the pianist raised her head to see a figure standing in front of the door. Moonlight poured onto the person's face, and the pianist recognized the figure. 

"Oh… It's you…"

The figure kept quiet.

"What did you want to say to me? You said that I had to meet you here in the practice hall during the party. Now what was it that you wanted to tell me?"

Without a word, the mysterious visitor took something that was hidden behind and showed it to Katrina. It was a knife that glittered eerily in the pale light from the full moon.

"What…what are you doing?" Katrina asked, horrified. "What do you want from me?"

The visitor pointed the knife at Katrina and ran toward her. In an instant, the keys of the grand piano were soaked in blood. The pianist then fell forward onto the keyboard. The knife stuck out from her stomach. Turning around, the person opened the door and went out, leaving the room with Katrina in it.

Katrina groaned and opened her eyes after the figure was gone. With the last of her strength, she thought of a way to tell the others who the person was. It was obvious that she wouldn't be able to live for another minute, but at least she needed to tell someone the identity of the killer.

The desperate pianist touched her stomach, which was gushing out blood as red and dark as her dark crimson shirt. Her fingers were then smeared with her blood. Raising her right hand, she played four notes. After that, her hand fell to her side and turned limp. The pianist was dead.

* * *

_**Postscript: **_**So there is one less suspect in the case. Who is the killer? Is it Nancy's friend who is also the violinist in the quartet, the violist who refuses to talk about his past, the cellist who knows more than he tells, the unfriendly stage crew, the nice and hapless manager, or strange, suspicious Mrs. Fontaine? Find some more clues in the next installment, titled: _Devilish Symphony..._**

_All of a sudden, Joe shouted something to Frank. Frank, startled, lifted his head to look at his brother. However, a loud snap followed and the blond detective was running toward him. The older Hardy looked up, and all he saw was the three-hundred-pound kleig light falling down. He then noticed that he was right under it._**  
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	8. Devilish Symphony

_**Foreword: **_**I'm not sure if I should talk about Thanksgiving, since some of my readers might not be from the US. Oh, well... Anyway, **_**Happy Thanksgiving! **_**Since I know you have time to read my chapter because you're not as busy as usual, this chapter will be longer than the previous chapters. I packed two chapters into one and included just the essentials for you to read and cut out all the unnecessary parts. The reason I'm doing this is because there will be a vital clue in this chapter that you'll not want to miss. In fact, if you got the clue, you'll be able to guess the killer, his/her trick, and the solid evidence! In other words, I gave you all the possible clues you'll ever need in this single chapter. And for those who still don't get who the killer is, I'll be sneaking in some small clues into chapters nine to eleven.  
**

**I'm still waiting for the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys graphic novels, but they aren't at the local library yet. I guess I just have to wait or order online, since I can't find them in any bookstore I know. Anyway, after this chapter, there are only three more chapters until the detective (Nancy, Joe, Frank, or Bess) reveals the killer. After that, like the one before this, there will be two revelation chapters in which the detective (I won't reveal who just yet; you'll have to wait) reveals the killer and his/her trick. In the last chapter, which I like to call Epilogue (since the mystery is already over), I'll be tying some loose ends together. In other words, there are six more chapters until this story truly ends. I promise that the next story will be much more exciting and filled with romance (and I don't mean just Nancy-Ned). Oops, I guess I'm revealing too much. For now, you'll just have to wait a few more weeks. I promise that my next story will be up by February or March. Enjoy the latest installment and please review!**

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**_**8**_

_**Devilish Symphony**_

Smith Wickliffe noticed that it was already time to go to the practice hall to play, but the pianist wasn't back. She was gone for at least fifteen minutes. The others were talking to each other, but they noticed that the Katrina was late.

"Where could she be?" Leticia wondered, looking around.

"Oh well," Luke said. "I guess we should just go to the practice hall. I think she might be there, waiting for us."

The group went to the practice room. As they opened the door, they noticed that the moon was hidden behind a thick blanket of clouds. The room was very dark, and they couldn't see anything in it. Abraham felt around the wall to find a switch. He found it and turned the lights on.

At that instant, Bess and Leticia both screamed at the same time. The lifeless body of the pianist was sitting down in front of the piano with the floor underneath her soaked in her blood. The eyes of the pianist stared blankly back at the guests who came into the room. They had no emotion; they just stared at the guests. And right next to the body was a letter with these words typed on it: "The second victim of the MUSICIAN FROM THE GRAVE."

Nancy was afraid of this. The murderer won. The killer finished off his second victim.

* * *

Police officers were everywhere. Nancy noticed that Officer Barnhart was there as well. She watched as the officers took fingerprints and photographs in and around the crime scene. She knew it was useless; if a murderer planned the crime in advance, then he or she would have at least worn a pair of gloves when committing the crime. 

The girl detective went to the grand piano and looked at the keys. She then noticed that four keys on the keyboard were smeared with blood.

The first one was right in between two black keys. The second one was between a black and a white key. The third one was also between a black and a white key. The last one was in between a white and a black key. Nancy carefully thought about the music lessons she enjoyed when she was a little girl. She knew that the first one was A and the second one was B.

As the girl detective continued up the scale, a horrid thought came into her mind. The letters spelled ABEC. In other words, they spelled Abraham Connor's name!

Frank noticed that, too, and thought for a moment.

"So we have ourselves a message," the officer said as he looked at the four notes. "A-B-E-C… I wonder if this means Abraham Connor…"

The officer looked at Abraham, who was talking with the others. Joe thought for a moment. He then went to the suspects. "Can you tell me your alibis from the time you left the dining room to the time you discovered the body?"

Luke was astounded. "Do you mean one of us is the killer?"

Joe didn't answer, but he then nodded. "There is a strong chance, since according to the police, every window in the house was closed and locked, and the cameras set up around the house showed no sign of intruders. They also searched every room in this house, including the attic, and found nobody hiding in the rooms."

Jennifer was trembling. "I…I was in the living room with everyone. I left the room to go to use the restroom for a few minutes. And after that, I noticed that people were in the living room looking at the clock."

"So you were alone when you left the living room?"

"Yes."

The next one was Mrs. Mott. "I was in the kitchen all the time washing dishes. Leticia was here with me all the time, except when she left the kitchen for about five minutes."

"So, can anyone say that you were in the kitchen all the time?"

"Um…No…"

The third one was Luke. "I stayed in the living room most of the time. I only went to the kitchen to get a glass of water."

Frank asked, "Did you see anybody there?"

Luke thought for a moment. "I don't think I saw anybody there."

He then turned to Mrs. Mott. "Didn't you say that you were at the kitchen all the time, Mrs. Mott?"

Mrs. Mott seemed surprised for a moment. "Oh, yes, well…I think I left the room for a minute or so. I didn't think it was important to say that, since I don't think I could've committed a murder in one minute."

But you did leave, Nancy thought.

Smith then said, "Well, I was in the living room all the time. I got out to go to the bathroom. I think it took me three to five minutes to come back."

Nancy closed her eyes. According to her memory, to get to the bathroom, she first had to get out of the living room, head for the direction of the dining room, and then turn right as she saw the door to the dining room. To get to the scene of the crime, she had to turn left instead of right when she saw the door of the dining room. Therefore, Smith could've gone to one of the two places: the bathroom or the practice hall. She knew that she had to keep an eye on Smith as well. But she then realized that Jennifer also used the bathroom at that time. That meant Jennifer, too, could have gone to the practice room instead of the bathroom.

Leticia went next. "As Mrs. Mott had said earlier, I was washing the dishes most of the time and went out to call a friend of mine. Since there was no phone in the kitchen, and since I forgot my cell phone at home, I used the one in the hall."

Nancy again thought about the telephone's location. She could've gone to call her friend and then entered the practice room in less than thirty seconds, if she hurried, making it possible for her to kill Katrina.

The girl detective then went to the suspect whom the notes the victim played right before she died indicated: Abraham Connor.

"Where were you after dinner?" the titian-haired girl asked.

"I was in the living room with the others, too," the violist said. "I don't think I ever got out of the room."

Nancy was awestricken. Katrina spelled Abraham's name on her piano, but the prime suspect didn't even leave the room!

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Jennifer, Luke, and Smith all nodded. Smith explained: "Each of us except for Abraham left the room, but only one of us left at a time, so there were still two people left, and I'm sure I saw Abraham sitting there before and after I went to use the bathroom."

"I agree," said Jennifer. "I did see him watching TV when we were waiting. And I think Luke can say the same thing."

The detectives paused to think about what the suspects said. According to their statements, nobody except for Abraham had a solid alibi, but his name was spelled out when they saw the keys on the keyboard that were smeared with blood.

This case was turning out more complicated than they had hoped. Then, Nancy suddenly remembered of Mrs. Fontaine.

So she doesn't have part in this case after all? Nancy thought.

The detectives went out of the house. Frank was deep in thought, just like Nancy. "So the most baffling thing about this case is that everyone has a solid alibi in the first murder, and the prime suspect in the second murder is the only one with an alibi."

"I was wondering, could someone have pressed Katrina's fingers onto the keyboard to leave a fake message?" asked Bess.

Nancy shook her head. "I don't think so. If someone really did leave the fake dying message, then he or she would've made a solid alibi for himself. In other words, the most suspicious suspect in a case would usually be the one with the most solid alibi."

Joe nodded. "I get it. If you know you're going to commit a murder, then you would at least make yourself an airtight alibi to protect yourself. But in the second murder, Abraham was the only one with a believable alibi."

Bess then asked, "What makes you so sure that the two murders are connected?"

Nancy replied, "Well, the writer knows about the blackmailer who kept tormenting Jack."

"But he could've talked to somebody about it."

"If he did so, then I don't think the person whom he talked to would know that the blackmailer _always _capitalized the name 'musician from the grave.' Therefore, the sender must be the killer in this case as well."

Bess suddenly gasped. "So could Abraham have put his own name down so the police would think that he's the prime suspect? And when the police notice that he had a solid alibi, then they would think twice about that. Besides, he has solid alibi during the first killing, also."

Nancy sighed. "Well, I don't think we can solve this case if we can't find out how the killer killed Jack in the first place. Even if we find evidence, as long as the person has an alibi, we can't make a move."

Frank grinned. "I knew I would hear something like that from a lawyer's daughter!"

Nancy smiled with her face turning slightly pink. It felt nice when Frank complimented her. She then suggested: "So, why not go to the theater to investigate? I think there's no concert held there tonight."

As the girl detective got into her car with Bess, Frank and Joe got into theirs. Nancy started the car and, grinning at Frank, drove into the night. Frank turned the ignition on, but he then noticed a blue car he hadn't seen before when the detectives arrived at the house. The headlight was turned off, but he could make out the face of the driver and was shocked to find out whom it was.

The driver was Mrs. Fontaine.

"Really?" Joe asked as his brother explained to him what he saw five minutes later. "Do you think she was there because she knew a murder would be committed tonight?"

Frank shrugged. "I don't know, really. She might have come here because Jennifer called her to come. Or," he paused, "she is the one who planned the murder."

Joe was astounded. "No way!" he shouted. "You think she's the killer?"

"I was merely suggesting a possibility, Joe."

After that, the two kept quiet. They didn't talk until they got to the theater.

Nancy and Bess were already there, waiting for the boys to arrive. The former saw Frank's face and was concerned. "Something happened?" she asked, walking toward the boys.

Joe nodded. "Frank saw Mrs. Fontaine when we left the house."

"Mrs. Fontaine?" Bess asked. "Didn't she come because she got a call from Jenny or something?"

Frank said, "I don't know, but I just got a feeling that she was there not because Jennifer called her."

Then, Nancy understood. Frank, too, was suspicious of Mrs. Fontaine.

* * *

The back entrance was locked, so the detectives decided to go to the front of the building and go into the theater. Fortunately, the concert hall was open, and they decided to go in. They went to the backstage and looked around for any clue. Frank searched the floor. Joe searched through the racks of costumes. Bess went to the dressing rooms. Nancy looked at the machines. 

Earlier that day, there was a play going on in the hall. Nancy remembered that the concert hall wasn't used just for concerts: sometimes, there were local shows and plays opened to the public. Searching in the hall made Nancy remember the time when she, George, and Bess met and investigated with Frank and Joe in a mystery involving a valuable vase and strange occurrences at a local theater when they were in New York City. George, who was looking for a secret passageway, was pulled into one by the culprit and was kept there for a few days. It was Nancy's first case that she solved with the Hardy brothers, and they had solved two cases total since then.

The girl detective came across a machine that controlled the rope that held the klieg lights in place. She knew that klieg lights typically weighed a few hundred pounds, and she was careful not to touch the machine. She noticed that each lever controlled the height of the light, and if one was brought down quickly, it could cause the light to crash down onto the floor.

The titian-haired detective went to the other side of the backstage and closed the curtain behind her, hiding the machine from view.

Frank Hardy looked up from the floor and saw many wooden boxes lying before him, just a few yards away. He then walked to the boxes. Frank checked each of the boxes and opened the lids. He found one that was labeled "Tuba" and opened the lid. There wasn't a tuba, but he found strands of brown hair at the bottom. The box was big enough to fit a person inside.

Closing the lid, the dark-haired detective went toward the stage. He then heard something creak.

"Frank!" someone shouted. He noticed that it was Joe. He turned around and saw Joe, who was looking at the ceiling with shock.

Frank then heard a loud creaking sound. The blond detective was running toward him. The older Hardy looked up, and all he saw was the three-hundred-pound klieg light falling down. The klieg light was located right above him!

Joe ran as fast as he could, but the light was falling down too fast, and the blonde detective was more than twenty yards away. Bess noticed this, too, and screamed. The klieg light was falling faster each moment, and Frank was too petrified to move. Nancy desperately looked for a way to save Frank. Her eyes went to the curtain that concealed the machine that moved the rope controlling the height of the klieg lights. Someone was running from the machine to the exit door located right behind the machine. Nancy was two yards away from the machine. With one swift motion, the girl sleuth opened the curtain, went to the machine, and pulled the lever that was placed down upward.

With yet another loud sound, the klieg light stopped in its place just a few feet above Frank's head. Now, the heavy light was steadily swinging from left to right. Silence followed for a few seconds, then Frank finally blinked, recovering from his shock. Noticing Nancy, whose hand was still on the lever, he smiled gratefully. "Thanks, Nancy," he called. "I owe you one."

Sighing a sigh of relief, Nancy went to Frank. "I'm so glad I didn't go too far from that machine. Anyway, I heard someone running to the exit. Should we chase after him?"

Frank shook his head. "No, I don't think we should. Besides, the culprit must be long gone now."

Joe looked at the klieg light. "It could be someone among the suspects," he said. "I'm sure he or she did that to frighten you off, if not kill you."

The detectives went to the exit and opened the door. Frank was right. The culprit must have parked his or her car there and escaped the scene in less than fifteen seconds. But Frank managed to see the blue car that was driving away from the parking lot and into the busy streets. He recognized the car, and his eyes got wide with shock.

The car belonged to Mrs. Fontaine.

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_**Postscript: **_**The next chapter will be titled: Lost in a Discord...**

_Nancy almost gasped as she entere the room. There were two scythes, with each of the blades gleaming in the light from the lamp, hanging from the wall. They were the exact ones that appeared in the girl detective's nightmare._

_**P.S. **_**I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as your thanksgiving dinner!**

**_P.P.S. _When chapter 11 (or 12 depending on the length of the novel) is up, I will ask you readers who the killer might be. If you answer correctly, I will send you a sneak preview of my next story which I'll be working on in a while. Don't worry, though. I'll reply to your review and send you the preview that way, therefore not involving the use of e-mail at all (which I think is good, since some of you don't want e-mails sent from strangers. I don't like it, either).**

**_P.P.P.S. _Mark your calenders! I'm sure that the next update will be up December first. Don't miss it, since that's the turn of the story (i.e. the climax).**_  
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	9. Lost in a Discord

_**Foreword: **_**I started a blog. It's "James Stapleton's Blog," and you can visit there by going to my profile. I will be writing about my progress in the newest novel and some hints for you along the way.**

**Wow! I just checked the stat for _Out of Tune_, and I found out that there were more than four hundred hits to this story! The first one only had 106 hits and the second had only 160. The newest one got four times more hits than the first one! I'll try harder for my next story and aim for 700 hits! Hope you'll still be interested in my next story as well as the end of the current mystery.**

**My story will be concluding in six more chapters, and I hope you will be able to catch up! That's because chapters 9, 10, 11, and 12 will go faster than ever, with the detectives facing yet another challenge... You'll have to read this chapter to find out what the next complication is! Anyway, the mystery will disclose in chapter 13. Who might be the killer? If you guess right, I'll send you the first three pages of my next mystery by replying to your review. If you don't know who the killer is, then you might want to wait four more weeks! Consider the disclosure to be a Christmas (or Hannukah or Kwanzaa) gift from me. I assure you one thing: the alibi trick is really easy to figure out, as long as you've been getting the clues I've been scattering here and there in the storyline. And the killer? Well, I know that some of you are falling for the red herring I put in and will be quite surprised to find out who was the cold-blooded serial killer. The climax starts at this chapter, and the rest will be a roller coaster ride, getting faster and never slowing down (at least not until the epilogue. Then, you'll get a chance to catch up to the story)! Read this chapter and review, please!**

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_**9**_

_**Lost in a Discord**_

"Are you sure the car was the one you saw when you left the house?" asked Nancy, who was perhaps the one most surprised to hear of Frank's discovery.

The dark-haired detective nodded. "I'm sure of it. I saw the car just today so I can tell if it's the same car or not."

Bess was scared. "Now I think she might be the killer after all. But I can't believe our friend's mother killed someone!"

Nancy nodded. "I'm not willing to believe it, but if she's the only suspect and lead we have, we have to investigate her background. But, I've been thinking something… If all the windows and doors were locked, how did Mrs. Fontaine enter the house in the first place?"

Frank understood. "There might have been an accomplice. Or, she used some kind of wire to lock the window after she entered the premise."

Joe looked at the machine. "But I wonder how she knew how to use this machine over here. A normal person wouldn't know what this machine is for unless he or she works here in the theater for some time."

"Then, I think the person with most experience is Leticia," Bess said. "She's the stage hand, and she's pretty used to working these machines."

The titian-haired girl then interrupted. "Guys, I don't think we can make any guesses here. Everyone's equally suspicious, and we need evidence and an explanation for the murder of Jack Rocky."

"We should go back," Frank said after a while. "I need to check something."

The detectives went to their cars and returned to the mansion. The suspects were still arguing with the officer, who was the same one that investigated Jack's murder.

Leticia said to the officer when the detectives opened the door and entered the mansion, "We all have solid alibis during the concert, and none of us could have killed Jack. You started being suspicious of us just because you saw our names on the notebook you found on the floor at the scene of the crime. And according to your statement, Abraham should be the one to be suspicious about in the murder of Katrina."

"Yes," Jennifer said. "I don't think we should be kept here." She then stared coldly at Abraham. "If you think he could be the one, why not just take him to the station and interrogate there? All of us shouldn't be kept in the house where a crime had been committed!"

"Please," Officer Barnhart said impatiently, "let us do our job here. The victim left Mr. Connor's name on the piano, but he is the only one with a solid alibi at the time of the crime, and these detectives here"—he turned to Frank, Joe, Bess, and Nancy—"all have alibis as well. The only ones without them are you five people." He then looked at Jennifer, Smith, Luke, Leticia, and Mrs. Mott. He got a sheet of paper from another policeman in the scene of the crime.

"Well," he started, looking at the sheet of paper, "it seems like most of you have a grudge against Katrina. Is that true?"

All six of the suspects didn't say a word.

"Miss Fontaine," the officer said, facing the violinist. "You disliked Miss Berkeley from the moment she stole your boyfriend, who was Mr. Connor. You and Mr. Connor had been dating before you were in the quartet and felt great shock when he went after Miss Berkeley."

Jennifer looked away from the officer, biting her lip as she did so.

"And Mr. Connor," he then said to Abraham, "I see that you hated her for dumping you after you started dating her for a few months."

Now it was Abraham's turn to glare down at his feet, his hands making a tight fist.

"Mr. Wickliffe," Officer Barnhart said as he went to Smith, "it seems like you've been Miss Berkeley's boyfriend for some time now, until you found out that she was in love with Jack Rocky, is that right?"

Smith didn't answer. He just stared blankly out the window.

The middle-aged policeman then went to Luke, who was sitting by the TV. "And Mr. Terrain, according to our records, you've once been convicted of a robbery when you were sixteen and got paroled just a year ago. And according to the bank records of Miss Berkeley, she had been depositing a thousand dollars more than the money she makes in performing in quartet into her account every month, and I assume she was blackmailing you about your past, is that right?"

Luke looked coldly at the officer and nodded. "Yes, that woman wanted everything and blackmailed me. She said that if I didn't give her the cash, then she would tell Mrs. Mott about my horrible past, and I thought that she wouldn't let me be the conductor any more…"

Nodding, the officer then went to Leticia. "Miss Meadow, I believe you had been angry toward Miss Berkeley ever since she cheated in her exam when you and she were in the same high school, before she went to the famous music college. According to a former classmate, she switched her answer sheet with yours and got the score that you thought you deserved."

Leticia's face held no expression as she sat there. "That may be so," she said after a while. "But that doesn't make me want to kill her, officer."

"And finally, Mrs. Zelda Mott," the officer said, "I noticed that your niece, Maria Voorhees, died in her mansion in Maine just a few years back. And according to our sources, she was in the same classroom as Miss Berkeley. Do you think that she had anything to do with Maria's suicide?"

"I…I honestly don't know," Mrs. Mott said after a while. She looked paler than usual. She then took out a handkerchief and mopped her eyes, which were now wet with tears.

The detectives watched the suspects' expressions. "So everyone has something against the dead pianist," Nancy muttered. "Any one of them could be the killer."

Suddenly, something struck Frank's mind. "Wait a minute…" he thought. Something didn't seem right from the moment the detectives entered the house.

The detectives, after agreeing that there were nothing to search in the house, left and went back to their cars. After getting into their hotel room, Nancy turned to Bess after wondering for a moment. "Bess, I'd like to go search that concert hall again."

"Huh?" Bess asked, with a questioning look. "Why?"

Nancy smiled. "I have a feeling that I'm coming close to the conclusion of this mystery!"

Bess finally agreed upon going there. "But promise me it'll be quick. I'm starving!"

The girls decided to eat first. After that, Nancy and Bess went to the concert hall. Entering the hall was as easy as before, and in less than few minutes, the girls were behind the stage.

Nancy started searching immediately. She went to look at the practice rooms. Bess started to search the backstage, but she then said to Nancy, "I have to use the restroom. I'll be back in a sec."

After the blonde girl was gone, Nancy turned to the practice room. She didn't notice this before, but there were many decorations in the room. She looked at the door. She was in practice room number four, in which Katrina stayed during the concert. There were a beautiful painting of a mountainous landscape and a colorful carpet on the floor. Nancy then went to the next room, which was room number three. She noticed that the decoration was totally different from the last room. There were two masks and a fancy lamp. The next room, number two, had a grandfather clock and a vase with roses in it.

The titian-haired detective went to the last room. She almost gasped as she saw what were hung on the wall. Right next to the table with a chair were two scythes, gleaming in the light from the lamp.

The girl detective touched them, and a rush or relief swept into her. It wasn't real; the scythes were props for a play. Nancy turned around and exited the room.

As Nancy went to the backstage, she began first at the machine used to control the height of the klieg light. Nothing was wrong with the machine, so she turned around. Suddenly, she realized a horrible possibility.

"Could it be that the killer used that trick?" she wondered.

With a flash, she remembered everything. The call made to Jack after the concert, the strange position of the phone in the ransacked room, the position of the body…

Everything made sense now. And she knew that the person who said the strange statement was the killer. And she finally knew what the message meant.

She was so busy looking for clues that she didn't notice that someone had gone to the practice room number one and took one of the two scythes. She didn't know that the person was sneaking to the backstage.

Nancy was too busy searching the floor and didn't hear the stranger with a scythe sneaking up on her. With a swing of the scythe, the back of the scythe hit the back of her head and Nancy was on the floor.

After two minutes, Bess came back from the restroom. She looked around. "Nancy?"

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Frank and Joe Hardy were watching TV in their hotel room. The show on TV was the one that showed the cops chasing cars on highways and local streets. It wasn't particularly exciting, but this was the only one the detectives could find amongst the limited number of channels offered by the hotel. And since they knew their parents would never pay extra for them to watch pay-per-view, they just sat there and stared at the TV. When a commercial appeared on the screen, Frank picked up the remote control and changed the channel. The screen changed to the channel that showed classic movies. At that time, it was showing _The Sound of Music_, starring Julie Andrews as Maria. The short-haired woman started singing one of the most memorable songs in the entire show: 

"Let's start at the very beginning/ A very good place to start/ When you read you begin with A-B-C/ When you sing you begin with do-re-mi/ Do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti…"

Then, Frank noticed that his cell phone was vibrating. He took it out from his pocket and looked at the phone number of the caller. "Bess?" he muttered, wondering what the blonde girl could be calling him for in the middle of the night. He quickly answered. "Hello?"

"Frank!"

Bess's voice was so scared and confused it immediately told Frank that something was wrong. Indeed, something was terribly wrong.

"What is it, Bess? What happened?"

Bess seemed to sob at the other end of the line. "Nancy and I were in the concert hall to investigate when I went to the restroom. But when I came out, Nancy was gone!"

"Gone?" Joe asked. He had heard Bess's sobbing and was listening to their conversation. "What do you mean? Did you search the place?"

"Yes! Of course I did!" the blonde detective said with a quivering tone. "I'm worried about her. What if she found a clue that the killer didn't want her to find? What if she was kidnapped again? And what if she saw the killer's face? She would be killed for sure!"

"Don't jump to conclusions, Bess," Frank said soothingly. "Joe and I'll be there in a few minutes. Wait at the lobby and, whatever you do, don't call the police."

"W…why?"

"Because the kidnapper might still be in the theater, or he might've hidden a bug in there somewhere. If he sees or hears you call the police, he'll kill Nancy for sure."

"O…okay. Please hurry!" Bess said, then hung up.

Joe turned to Frank. "We'll need to go to the concert hall, pronto!"

Frank nodded. "But I don't understand something…" he said.

"What is it?"

"If Nancy faced the killer, then she would've used the karate chops and knocked the attacker out. If she was knocked down, then I'm guessing that the attacker had actually sneaked up on her."

Joe nodded. "And looking at how good she is at karate, I'm sure that she didn't even realize that the attacker was there."

"Then we have to hurry," Frank added. "I don't think Nancy's going to be safe for long. Once she wakes up, she'll be trying to find a way out or at least to contact us."

Joe took the car keys. "Should I?" he asked, grinning.

Frank rolled his eyes. "Why not?" he responded. "After all, we're in a hurry. Just be careful not to zoom by any cop, okay?"

"Roger that," said the younger Hardy, heading out from the door of the room.

A few minutes later, the Hardys got to the concert hall and discovered Bess waiting for them at the door. "About time!" she said, more worried than ever. "We have to search for Nancy. I went to every single room in the whole building, but none was occupied. And Nancy was nowhere to be seen!"

Frank suggested that they go to the backstage. "Maybe the killer escaped from the back entrance," he suggested. He then went to the exit. The door was opened, and the car in which the kidnapper came was nowhere to be seen.

"Okay," muttered Frank, "I don't think we can catch them anymore. Let's investigate the scene of the crime first."

Frank went to the stage. The curtain was down, so he pushed the button next to the pillar. The curtain slowly rose.

When the curtain rose halfway, Bess saw what was behind it and screamed.

A scythe was hanging from the ceiling, held by a single string, swinging from side to side. What scared her the most was the dark-red liquid that was smearing the blade of the scythe.

The scythe was stained with blood.

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_**Postscript: **_**Could it be? Is the famous girl detective dead? What could've happened to her? What did she find out? And, most important of all, will Frank be able to save her? The chase starts from the next chapter, titled: _A Bloody Serenade _(creepy title, isn't it?)**

_Frank noticed that there was a note posted on the scythe. He read it out loud:_

_"Stop the investigation, or your redheaded friend will be sacrificed to the MUSICIAN FROM THE GRAVE!" _

**_P.S. _A big news! This mystery and the second one will be connected. In other words, to get the full story, you'll have to read this and the next novel (the title is still unknown, but I have the plot all made and ready), and the ending of this story is the beginning of the other... More information coming soon! Oh, and please review! I'd like to hear from you, especially readers who read my story but didn't review it. I would appreciate it if you could just write a few words describing whether you liked my story or not.**

**The next update is: **December 9.


	10. A Bloody Serenade

_**Foreword: **_**I've been thinking about whether I should update more than once per week, and I decided to do that. The first reason was because a reader has been really anxious to read the next chapter (after a cliffhanger like that, who wouldn't be?). The second reason is because I need to finish this story by the end of this year, and that's not very far away. I want to celebrate my being an author in this website for one whole year by starting a new story. In other words, I'll be giving you the five remaining chapters in less than four weeks. That means I need to update twice per week for some of them. But I would still like reviews. The more I get, the quicker I type, basicly :-). I'm just kidding, of course, but I would want to hear from my readers. So, if you're not in a hurry, please spend a few seconds typing a sentence or two about my story or current chapter. That would help me a LOT in creating my next novel. Read and please review!

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_**10**_

**_A Bloody Serenade_**

For a second, Frank was too awestricken to move. Could it be? Was Nancy actually killed by the fiendish murderer? His entire mind seemed to crash down as he imagined Nancy's bloody body being disposed in an alley. Her eyes were rolled upward and staring blankly at the sky and her beautiful titian hair was redder than ever. Her clothes were also smeared with her blood. She didn't say anything, just stared at the sky…

Frank shook his head violently. The image quickly disappeared and he ran to the stage immediately. Taking the scythe from the string, he looked at it closely. A sudden rush of relief swept over his mind. His knees were so weak from relief that he was about to crumble onto the ground. The red liquid wasn't real blood; it was stage blood widely used during the scenes where the actors or actresses had to fake their deaths.

"It's not real," he said to the other two, who were staring at the scythe in shock. Bess was so relieved that, if it weren't for Joe's supporting her, she would've fallen down on the chair.

"Are… Are you sure?" asked the girl.

Frank nodded. "It's stage blood, and there's a note pasted on the back of this scythe."

The detective took the note off and read it:

"'Stop the investigation, or your redheaded friend would be sacrificed to the MUSICIAN FROM THE GRAVE.'"

Bess was the only one who gasped. "That's the person who sent Nancy that threatening e-mail!"

"What?" Frank shouted, surprised. "You mean, she was threatened by the Musician from the Grave as well?"

Bess shook her head. "She got that e-mail only once. But I saw that there was a picture of the skull just beneath the message."

Frank thought for a moment. "We still need to keep this a secret from the police," he finally said. "If the killer finds out that the police is on to him, he might eliminate Nancy out of the picture—permanently."

"And besides," Joe added, "the police won't do anything until twenty-four hours has passed. That's the rule with those people."

His brother nodded. "And that's the mistake they make," added he. "If the investigation was started too late, then the survival rate of the kidnapped would drop dramatically. We need to act fast."

The detectives first started by looking in the practice rooms. Frank found out that, in the first practice room they searched, there was a scythe hung on the wall that was exactly like the one that was hanging from the ceiling on the stage. He figured out that the kidnapper took the scythe from the room.

Frank looked at his watch. It was already ten past nine. No wonder he was a little tired! The day had been nothing but trouble, and the detective was glad if he could solve the case anytime soon.

As the three detectives went out of the practice rooms after finding no clue there, Frank noticed that his cell phone was again vibrating. He took it out and looked at the phone number of the caller.

"Nancy!" he shouted in joy.

Bess and Joe turned around immediately. "What!" Bess cried out. "Is she okay?"

Flipping his phone Frank immediately called to the person at the other end of the line, "Hello? Nancy? Are you all right?"

"She is all right," an unfamiliar, mechanical voice said with a taunting tone. "In fact, she is just taking a short nap here in my car."

"Who are you?" Frank asked, suddenly noticing that the caller was the kidnapper. That meant that Nancy wouldn't be able to call him even if she woke up! Things were looking worse for Nancy.

"I'm the Musician from the Grave, of course," the voice said, snickering. The kidnapper had actually used some sort of voice-changing device, so the detective wouldn't be able to realize who was calling. In fact, the voice was so distorted Frank couldn't tell if the caller was a woman or a man.

"I know you are the killer who murdered Jack and Katrina. Why did you take Nancy with you?"

The voice laughed menacingly. Because it was mechanically changed, the laugh was more horrifying than the voice itself. "Oh, let's just say that I've already finished by revenge. I just took this detective to warn you to stop your investigation at once."

Frank bit his lip. "And what if we did? Are you going to hand Nancy back to us?"

The caller seemed to think for a moment. "Maybe. Maybe not."

"At least tell me what you want!" shouted Frank in anger. He couldn't take the tone anymore. It was as though the caller was actually toying with the detectives. "Don't let Nancy be in any danger. She doesn't have anything to do with that stupid revenge you talked about just now!"

"Shut up!" the voice demanded. Now, the tone changed from mocking to furious. "Those two deserved to die! Because the police wouldn't do anything, I took the law to my own hands. Those two should be killed long ago, but I decided to torment Jack especially so he would die frightened. I loved the look on his face when I killed him."

This guy is a maniac! thought Frank. If I don't find him soon, who knows what he'll do to Nancy?

"Hey, you!" Frank called. "Tell me what you want. I just want Nancy to be safe!"

"I talked enough," the caller answered, obviously ignoring Frank's statement. "I'll call you back sometime tomorrow. Until then, you'd better stop the investigation or your friend will pay for you…with her life!"

The line went dead. Frank stood there, unmoving. Many feelings were mixed inside him, and he didn't know if he could hold them back.

"Argh!" Frank shouted at the top of his lungs. He then sank down and smashed his fist onto the floor as strong as he could. Bess and Joe just stood there, staring with sorrowful expression on their faces. Frank couldn't handle it anymore; he was feeling anger, despair, sadness, and anxiety all at once, and the four feelings were kept inside him all throughout the investigation. But now that Nancy was kidnapped, he found himself cursing at the top of his lungs. He never felt angrier than this. As he looked, Bess and Joe could see the flaming fury burning inside his eyes. He bit down with his teeth even harder and made a tight fist with his hands.

"I'll never forgive him!" he shouted furiously. "That was the last straw! The killer will be captured, and I'll pay my life to catch him!"

* * *

Speed bump.

That was what created a sudden movement in the car, and the girl detective whose hands and legs were bound together awoke as her head hit the seat.

"Where am I?" she asked herself, but the words wouldn't come out. Her mouth was covered tightly with handkerchief that prevented her from doing anything but breathe using her nostrils. It was nearly impossible to utter even the faintest sound.

"What am I doing here?"

A sudden blast from the past reminded her how she came to be bound and gagged in a car. She remembered the scythe clearly. She remembered the pain, the blackness, and her nightmare. She already had in mind who the killer was, but she wasn't sure if that person had actually kidnapped her. It didn't seem practical for that person to actually kidnap her.

"Then who can the kidnapper be?" she thought.

The car turned abruptly to the right, making Nancy almost cry out in pain as her head hit the handle of the door.

And another speed bump.

Nancy tried looking out the window to find out where she was. It was not use. The angle from which she looked out the window only showed her the cloudy sky and some streetlights. There seemed to be a lot of lights just a few miles away, but that was all she could see. It seemed like the car was driving on a highway. The ride was smooth and without stopping. The girl sleuth tried looking at the face of the kidnapper. That was no use, either. The man—or woman—was wearing a black mask, and the only thing Nancy could observe was that the person was about five-ten, just a few inches taller than she. But that didn't rule out anything, since everyone in the quartet was at least five-five, and the manager was five-eight. Who could this person be?

As she wondered, Nancy saw that the car was turning left. This time, she actually slid a little, banging her heels onto the other door. It seemed like forever before the driver stopped the car. Nancy could see less streetlight from the window. The door opened, and a sound of footsteps on a gravel road followed. Nancy could hear the kidnapper's feet making contact with the ground below, making the crunching sound that resembled the sound that a certain cereal would make when poured with milk. Then, the door opened wide. A blinding light shone into Nancy's face, and she couldn't help closing her eyes.

The kidnapper was holding a light next to his—or her—face. That prevented Nancy from seeing his face, and therefore preventing from telling who he was. That was the method many policemen used, and Nancy knew well from her past investigations. The kidnapper then took his hands and put it around Nancy's waist. In one swift motion, he lifted the girl up and carried her to a nearby building.

Nancy could see the scenery now, but she wasn't used to Seattle, so she didn't know where she was. She could see many lights far away in the horizon, but the place in which they were was nearly pitch-black. There were a couple of streetlamps, but that didn't help illuminate the never-ending field that covered the land. Nancy noticed that they were in a warehouse far from civilization—if not from a police station—with nothing more than a black car. The kidnapper took out his keys and opened the door. After that, he flipped the light switch on and entered. Nancy looked around. There was nothing in the warehouse, just a few old wooden boxes.

There the kidnapper put Nancy down and left the place without saying a word.

"This must be my chance!" the girl detective thought, then quickly looked through her pockets.

"Oh no! I can't find my Swiss army knife anywhere! The kidnapper must've taken it when I was knocked out!"

Searching her back pockets, she sighed. No use; the kidnapper took her cell phone as well. She then looked around. There were nothing but boxes as far as she could see. The girl detective felt around the floor. Finally, after minutes of searching, she found a large wood splinter.

"Maybe I can use this to cut these ropes!"

Hopeful, the girl detective started right away. She first started with her wrists.

"Ugh! It's harder than I thought!"

The girl detective tried standing up. When she succeeded, she started rubbing her wrists at the sharp edges of the wooden boxes.

It took a while, but Nancy managed to cut one layer of rope, and that was all she needed to free herself.

When the sleuth completely freed her hands, the door was banged open. The kidnapper was back!

Frantic, Nancy tried to free her feet, but the ropes were tighter than she had hoped. The attacker started to come toward her. When he turned on the light switch, he saw her with her hands freed and desperately trying to free her ankles.

The attacker murmured an angry grunt. He then took out something from his pockets. One was a handkerchief. The other was a small glass bottle used to put medicine in back in the olden days. Quickly, he dabbed the handkerchief with the liquid in the bottle. Taking away the handkerchief which prevented Nancy from talking, the kidnapper covered her mouth with the handkerchief dabbed with the liquid. As soon as she took a whiff of the liquid, Nancy was alarmed. It was chloroform!

Nancy knew that if she didn't breathe in the liquid, she wouldn't be knocked out. So she held her breath as long as she could. But when she ran out of it, she took a big gulp of air. Unfortunate for her, the last thing she smelt was the sour-sweet smell of the knock-out drug.

She remembered nothing more.

* * *

_**Postscript: **_**I'm sure that some of my readers are saying "Whew! I'm glad Nancy wasn't dead!" I know, I've read some fan fictions where Nancy is actually DEAD! And I couldn't help but think how cruel that is to the tradition of Nancy Drew and Hardy boys. But I still liked that fanfic, since it touched mainly on romance and about Frank grieving Nancy's death. In this story, Nancy is thankfully still alive, but don't think that I won't "kill" off Nancy in future novels :-). Anyway, I'm sure you enjoyed this chapter. I won't be putting up sneak previews because the last one kind of revealed the fact that Nancy was still alive. And when the revelation of the killer starts, I won't even tell you the chapter titles!**

**Countdown: only 5 more chapters to go! And only 2 more chapters till the killer is known.**

**Next update: December 9 (for real this time!) **


	11. The Mystery Incarnate

**_Foreword: _So, as I promised, this will be another update for this week. But don't worry; I'll be updating on Tuesday as well, so you won't need to wait for too long. Anyway, this chapter will start with a flashback of the past. I will be adding little bits of how Maria Voorhees died, and that will surely help you make the connection on who the killer might be and his or her motive. The next chapter will start the same way. Well, I don't want to spoil too much for you, so I'll let you get started on the reading. Enjoy and REVIEW, please!

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_**11**_

_**The Mystery Incarnate**_

The night was long and dreadful. Next to her piano, the famous pianist sat with her hands on her head, her beautiful auburn hair covering her face, which was distorted with despair. As she looked up, she saw that the sky was turning gray again, as gray as her feeling. Maria placed her hand on the keys and played.

Music seemed to seep through the ceilings and walls and out to the outside world, blessing it with the beautiful melody. But the music didn't last long.

Something creaked behind the pianist's back. Surprised, she turned around. "Who is it?" she called, frightened. There was nobody in the house except for her, and the girl was afraid it was a burglar. But when she saw the face her expression eased. "Oh, it's you… What brought you here?"

"I was just coming by to say hi," the visitor said, smiling. "Just came here to see how you were doing."

"Oh?" Maria asked, suddenly becoming suspicious. "What seems to be the matter here?" She detected a slight uneasiness in the person's face.

With a grunt, the mysterious visitor took something out. It was a bat. Maria's eyes were wide with shock. "What is this? Is this some kind of sick joke?" She saw the visitor raise the bat.

Then, it was swung down onto the pianist's head.

* * *

Frank was frantically thinking of a way to save Nancy. Thinking up nothing, he turned to the scythe which was smeared with fake blood. "I think we should go to the hotel room," he said, standing up. Joe and Bess looked at Frank with a quizzical look. 

"What do you mean?" asked Joe.

"I mean that we need to do some research," was the answer.

"What research?"

Frank looked at Joe impatiently. "We need to use your computer to find what Jack Rocky and Katrina Berkeley have in common. With your hacking—I mean, researching—skill, that can be made in a snap."

Joe grinned understandingly. "Got it." He turned to Bess. "You coming?"

Bess nodded stubbornly. "Of course! She's also _my _friend, if you didn't notice! Besides," she smiled at Joe, "I'd like to observe your 'researching' skill Frank was talking about. If you didn't know, I'm a sort of mechanic, too. And George is nearly professional at gadgets. You can tell that we are cousins by simply looking at those facts."

"The _only _way," Frank thought mischievously. The reason was that Bess and George, her cousin, had almost nothing in common. Bess enjoyed her feminine pleasure while George preferred the hardboiled action. Bess was slightly plump, and George was as athletic as a girl of age eighteen could possibly get.

"So let's go," Joe urged. "We need to move faster than this if we want to save Nancy!"

Agreeing, the three detectives went to their cars and drove straight to the hotel room which the two Hardys shared.

Opening his laptop, Joe introduced his latest hacking software. "Here," he said with a mischievous grin, "is the RoboHack."

Frank then said to Bess, "That's the software Joe begged his friend to make for him. Can you believe that he actually spent a month's worth of allowance to make him create that software?" Bess giggled.

"The latest version, 1.1.6," Joe added, ignoring the two detectives.

Frank then said, "But there were so many problems with the first version, so Joe asked that friend to make patches for that software. There were actually sixteen patches, but there are still twenty or more problems to fix in this software."

Joe typed in the names of the two victims and searched the Internet with it. "You may say that it's just like ordinary search engines," he said. "But this program can actually let me hack into websites in which only certified people could visit. This program lets me plant a little bug into the website, and when a person logs on, the bug will automatically memorize the log-on ID and password. So we'll just have to wait for a few hours before a person logs on."

"Okay, so we basically need to search the sites of universities. If my instinct is right, I'll be that those two went to the same university."

In fact, Frank's intuition was right after all. Within minutes, the younger Hardy found the site which had the names Brian McMillan and Katrina Berkeley. "But the website is strictly for the students and staffs only. Therefore, I need to set a bug here and wait for the next person to log on," Joe said.

The detective did so, and after thirty or so minutes, the computer beeped. "Someone logged on!" Bess shouted in joy. "Let's log on now!"

"Hold it," Joe said, holding his hands up so Bess wouldn't run to the computer. "We can't log on just yet. The person who logged on is still using the website, and we have to wait till he or she logs off. Otherwise, theuser will be suspicious, since there are two computers logging on at once."

Bess nodded. And so, the detectives waited. After another thirty minutes, the user finally logged off, and the detectives logged on using the password and user ID. But Bess gasped as she saw the person who last used the website: Matilda Fontaine.

"That's Mrs. Fontaine's name!" she said with a shocked expression.

"What?" shouted the two guys, even more surprised that she was.

The dark-haired detective nodded. "I remember now. When we first met Mrs. Fontaine, she introduced herself to us, and her first name was Matilda!"

Joe and Bess looked at the name on the screen. "Why was she logging on to the university's website?" Bess asked.

Frank shrugged. "But this is another piece of the puzzle."

Frustrated, Joe scratched his head. "Yeah. We don't know why she was at the concert hall that time Frank was almost smashed into by a falling light. And we don't know how and why she logged on to a university website in which even her daughter doesn't attend."

Agreeing, Frank was still wondering why the woman might have access to the website. Surely a woman of her age wouldn't be a student in the university that's thousands of miles from her home. Is she a staff member there?

The detectives logged on, and after a while got the information that Jack and Katrina were in the same class just two years ago and graduated last year.

"So this fits," Frank mumbled.

Exiting the site, Joe looked at Frank. "Is there any new lead now?"

"Yeah… We should go talk to Mrs. Mott."

"Huh?" Bess asked, not following Frank's train of thought. In fact, her mind was frantically chasing after it, hoping to hop on. "Why her?"

"I noticed that when we first came here and met the suspects, Mrs. Mott pulled Nancy out of the room to the next practice room. I didn't hear what was going on, and we all left the place after a short while. A minute later, I saw Nancy coming after us. She and Mrs. Mott must've been talking about something. I know she's a suspect and we can't trust her completely, but she is our only lead. We need to hear what she was talking to Nancy. Her talk may be involved in Nancy's kidnapping."

"But for those who didn't know," Joe said, "it's already eleven at night! What kind of idiot would welcome three strangers into their home when we knock on her door at midnight?"

Frank nodded solemnly. "So we should continue this investigation tomorrow. Meanwhile, stay alert. We don't know who the kidnapper and killer is. We certainly can't afford to get a red herring. Come here tomorrow at about three o'clock. All right?" he said, facing Bess as he finished speaking.

Bess understood and left in her car.

The very next afternoon, the detectives went to talk to the manager of the quartet. She opened the door and smiled graciously. "Hello, detectives," she said in a pleasant tone. "How can I help you all?"

"We need to ask you if you could tell us what you told Nancy when we were at the concert hall," Joe said. Mrs. Mott seemed confused and blinked several times, not understanding what Joe had spoken.

Sighing, Frank restated the question: "What did you tell Nancy after she and you went to the practice room?"

Mrs. Mott still looked confused, but then nodded, finally understanding what they said. "Please come in," she said, gesturing for the teenagers to come in. They did so, and the woman closed the door behind them.

Once in the living room, Mrs. Mott became very worried. "I had this niece named Maria Voorhees. Because she was an orphan, I was in charge of being her legal guardian. But one day, she killed herself in her own home, just a year ago. I was wondering if Nancy could help me solve the reason she killed herself, and maybe the real truth."

"The real truth?" Bess repeated.

"Yes. There was something strange about Maria's body after I found her dead in her bedroom. She drank cyanide and had died there peacefully, but I never understood how she made that ugly bump on her head."

"A bump?" repeated Frank.

The woman nodded. "My guess was that someone knocked Maria out by hitting her with something hard. She was then brought to her bedroom by the killer. Then, he or she poured cyanide into her mouth and killed her. That was my guess, but obviously the police didn't seem to notice. In fact, they said that it was maybe made when she fell or something. But I knew that was nonsense!"

Frank understood. "Yes. If someone fell, he would have a bump on his forehead or the back of the head, never actually _on_ the head itself. That means someone had smashed something hard onto her head. The blow was strong enough to knock her out, but not quite as strong as to kill her at that spot."

Mrs. Mott took out her handkerchief and started sobbing. "That's not the only reason. Just a week after her death, she was supposed to play a few songs for me as a birthday present for my turning forty-five. But I never did hear that beautiful melody of hers. I should've come sooner, so she wouldn't have been killed by that awful murderer!" She then crumbled down on the floor with tears rolling down her white cheeks that didn't seem to cease.

The detectives looked at each other and nodded. "Sorry to interrupt you this early. We'll be leaving now," Frank said. Without waiting for a response, they went out through the door.

Once outside, Frank said, "That sure seemed realistic. I'd actually say that she was crying, not faking it."

Bess nodded. "But looks are always deceiving," she added, "especially when most of the cute guys I dated before turned out to be a spy or a police or—on a worst-case scenario—even the culprit himself!"

Frank and Joe laughed heartily. "All right. Time for a quick break," Frank said. "We'll just need to do one more thing…"

"What is it?" asked Joe.

"We need to go to the library to research the murder of Maria Voorhees."

Bess groaned. "So much researching! And not much investigation."

Joe snickered. "Well, you can investigate to your heart's content after we finish the researches."

The local library was only twenty minutes away. The detectives went inside and looked for the newspaper section.

"Let's see," Joe murmured, opening his laptop. "According to my search online, the article should be on the "USA Nowadays" newspaper. It's the June 30 newspaper."

"Gotcha," Frank said, stepping into the section where the newspapers from up to thirty years ago were stored. He found the newspaper in three minutes. "Here."

Bess looked at the newspaper. The story of the day was "S.S. Cobalt Lost At Sea." As she flipped through it, she asked Joe, "What section of the newspaper is this article on?"

"It should be on the eleventh page."

Flipping to the tenth page, Bess gasped. "You guys! Look!"

Frank and Joe looked at what Bess pointed to. All of their eyes got round with surprise. The article stating the death of Maria Voorhees was cut out and was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

**_Postscript: _Mrs. Fontaine is turning out more and more suspicious by the minutes! Is she really connected to this serial murder? And who took the newspaper clipping of the death of Maria Voorhees? The investigation gets yet another startling turn as the detectives continue their research on the three deaths!**

**_Attention!_ The next chapter will be the LAST one before I reveal the killer! So if you want to make a guess on who the killer might be, please notify me via your review by the time I put up Chapter 13 (which will be on December 15).**

**The title of the next chapter is: _The Cat and Mouse Chase..._**

**The next update: December 12**


	12. The Cat and Mouse Chase

**_Foreword: _I forgot to update yesterday, so I'll update now. As I said, Chapter 12 will be the last chapter in which the killer is not revealed yet. Think about the two murders for a while. Who could be the killer? And what could be the trick? How can a person move from place to place in a blink of an eye? All the answers will be answered in the next three chapters, but the epilogue leads to the next mystery, which I plan to publish the first day of January 2006. The title of the new novel is not yet known, and I'll be thinking about the title (but I already got the first chapter written down and is all set to get published).**

**Also, I've been thinking about writing a Sherlock Holmes fan fiction as well. Because Sherlock is not an amateur detective, his investigation will move a LOT faster than Nancy Drew and Hardy boys'. I plan to publish the new novel sometime in January as well in the Sherlock Holmes section. If you get the chance, you might also want to visit my blog, which is stated in my profile.**

**Read, enjoy, and review, please!

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_**12**_

**_The Cat and Mouse Chase_**

The killer dragged Maria Voorhees, who was now unconscious, up the staircase and onto her bed in her bedroom. After that, he took out a small bottle of cyanide and poured some down the pianist's throat. He looked out the window.

He was done; the murder was finished, and he had nothing more to worry about. Now that she was gone, completely out of the picture, he could do anything he wanted. With a smirk in his face, the murderer turned and exited the premise.

Getting into his car, the killer drove away into the forest, which was still dark from lack of sunlight. The sun was rising, and he knew that his plan was a success. Driving away, he never looked back and never noticed that another person was staring at him from in front of the house.

He never noticed thatthe person was watching him.

* * *

"What?" Bess shouted in surprise. The two other hushed her, for they were all in a library, a place of peace and soundlessness. The blonde girl looked at the other two as they sat down onto a table in the library. A few of the patrons looked at the teenagers with angry looks, so they decided to move to some place less quiet. They decided to go to the teenage section. They were now hidden among rows and rows of shelves with books. Bess looked around, gave a nod of approval that nobody was eavesdropping, and asked, "Are you serious, Frank?"

Frank gave a single nod. "We're serious. We'll go into the Fontaines residence."

"Great, Frank," Joe said sarcastically. "You and your perfect plan to get us all in jail and locked up for a long time and then get yelled at by our Dad and get grounded for the rest of eternity. What a perfect plan, big brother."

Frank sighed. "Look. This is the only way we can get another lead. We'll have to search Mrs. Fontaine's house to see if we can get any new lead. In order to do that, we'll need to sneak inside when they're away."

"But how do we get in?" Bess asked. "As far as I know, Nancy's the only one with a talent for lock-picking!"

Frank smiled. "Well, ever thought that I could be good at it, too?"

Bess's eyes got wider. "No way!"

"Yeah. And I happen to be one of the best lock-pickers in Bayport."

"As if that's something to be proud about," Joe muttered sarcastically.

"Okay, so our plan is to call the Fontaines' residence and see if they're at home. Then, if they aren't, we should go there to search the house. Bess," he looked at the blonde detective, "you'll have to sit outside in your car to see if they came back or not. Just so we're alerted when Mrs. Fontaine actually comes back."

"Gotcha," Bess said, giving him the thumbs-up. "And you guy'll search the place? Fine with me. I'll have my cell phone ready to call you."

"But we need to call the house first," reminded Joe.

So they did. After five times ringing, the phone switched to the answering machine. Frank and Joe nodded to each other. "We'll go now," Frank said.

A few minutes later, the detectives were at the three-storied house. Looking at his watch Frank made a movement to go to the door. Ringing the doorbell a few times, the boys were sure that there wasn't a single soul in the place. Frank took out his tools and worked on the lock. He opened the door in two minutes.

Slipping into the house quietly, the detectives first went to the room where there was a computer. Joe quickly turned the computer on and saw a screen pop up.

"Curses. We'll need to get a password!"

Frank thought for a moment. "Well, people usually feel safe when their computer is at home. Therefore, they don't even bother to set up a _real_ password. In other words, the password might be the simplest keyword you can ever get. In this case, try 'Matilda' or 'Fontaine' or 'Jennifer'."

Joe nodded and typed the three names. None of them worked. Looking up, Frank began searching for anyplace where the woman could've hidden her password. As his gaze went to the bookshelf, his attention was taken by one of the books.

"It's a copy of _The Vagabond_, a classic novel about a certain traveler who wanders around the continent in search of his love."

Joe made a face. "Yuck! I remember. Mom has been reading that book for ages! She says it's 'one of the most heartwarming tales ever told.' Blech!"

Frank opened the book and looked at the bookmark. "Bingo," he muttered. "I think we know what our password is: Mattie1963. I should've known. She's using the year of her birth in her password."

"Huh. A typical scenario," Joe murmured, typing in the letters and clicking "enter". The box disappeared, and the boys were redirected to another screen. Frank started by looking at the Internet history. He soon found that the woman erased all trace of where she went immediately after exiting that site. This woman proved to be more and more suspicious by the second.

Frank wondered, "Why is she erasing her history?"

Joe looked through the files but found none that seemed to be useful. After shutting down the computer, the boys started searching in other rooms. After an hour of investigation, the detectives were about to give up. But when they went to the kitchen, they saw a file placed on the countertop. Frank went and opened the manila folder. "Bingo again!" he muttered happily. "Here's something you should take a look at, Joe. We've been searching the entire house for it when it was right here under our noses!" What the Hardys found was the clipping of the article they were looking for that morning. It was the article about the death of a pianist named Maria Voorhees.

"It says here that she was found dead at her house in Maine. The case was believed to be suicide, says the officer in charge of the investigation. Because of the lack of evidence pointing to a possibility of murder, the case was closed as being a suicide," Joe read.

"And we have ourselves a prime suspect," Frank said, grinning. "Now all we need is the evidence pointing her to the crimes."

Bess was outside, yawning. She was staring at the gate of the house, but the Hardys hadn't been seen for nearly two hours, and she was getting tired and hungry. As Bess began to call the Hardys, someone knocked on the window next to her, and when she looked to her left, her blood almost ran cold as she saw Mrs. Fontaine standing there.

"What's the matter, Bess?" she asked with a concerned expression. "Is everything all right, dear?"

"Oh…I…ah…was waiting for Jenny! I wanted to talk to her about beginning to take violin lessons, since I'm very interested in starting violin."

Even though Bess knew that was a lame explanation, the woman nevertheless smiled pleasantly and said, "Well, Jennifer is taking her weekly lesson right now, and she would be back an hour later. Would you like to wait inside?"

"No, thank you. It's okay," said Bess, smiling uneasily back.

The woman left toward her house, and Bess immediately made a call. "Frank! Red alert! Mrs. Fontaine is back!"

Frank nodded as he got the message. "We'll need to get out of here," he said to Joe, who was still searching through the piles of files and papers.

The detectives escaped through the back window, which was unlocked from the beginning. They silently made to the backyard and left unnoticed. Mrs. Fontaine opened the door just as the Hardy boys were out of the house.

"We're safe now," Joe muttered as he and Frank ran toward their car which was parked at the side of the building.

Mrs. Fontaine closed the door behind her. As she walked to the computer room, she noticed that her copy of _The Vagabond_ was on the floor. She immediately looked out the window and noticed the Hardys driving away in their car.

"I should've known," she muttered under her breath.

* * *

The detectives met at the hotel room which the Hardy brothers occupied. Frank and Joe told Bess the discovery they made. Bess listened intently and was surprised to find that Mrs. Fontaine had the clipped article of Maria Voorhees under her bed. "Do you think she's really involved in this case?"

Frank nodded. "It's hard to say that she isn't at this stage. Besides, I might even say that she might be involved somehow in the murder…"

Bess was astonished. "You don't say!" she muttered. "She is my friend's mother! Why would she even kill the two victims?"

Frank shrugged. "It's hard to look into her mind. But we need to find evidence. Any evidence at all. We still don't have a slightest idea how the solid alibis were created and why Katrina left ABEC on the keyboard."

Joe nodded in agreement. "We are still missing a lot of the pieces of the puzzle. We also need to investigate the case about Nancy's kidnapping. So far, the kidnapper hasn't called, and the cell phone was turned off when I last called."

The detectives decided to take a break and went around the city. It was six o'clock when Frank got the call from Nancy's cell phone.

"Hello?" he answered immediately. Joe and Bess were with him. "Who is this?"

"You know who I am," the caller said in a menacing mechanic tone. "And I'll be holding Miss Drew hostage."

"Why are you doing this?"

"The girl simply knew too much," the kidnapper said.

With a sudden gasp, the familiar voice of the girl detective shouted, "Frank! I'm kept in an abandoned warehouse thirty miles from Seattle! It's at the intersection of Craig Street and…"

Grunting, the kidnapper hit the young detective. Crying out for a short moment, the girl sleuth was silenced. Turning back to Frank, the kidnapper spoke: "You'd better not investigate any further into the case, detectives."

The line went dead.

Joe opened his laptop immediately. "Thirty miles from here… And there are just a few warehouses around that area, according to this map."

Frank cursed the phone. Then turning to Joe, he said: "Let's go. We've got no time to lose!"

As he went his car, the young detective stopped and faced his brother. "Joe, you and Bess ride in the same car. I don't think Bess can keep up with your driving."

Joe grinned. "No problem. I'll be in touch using my amazing cell phone."

The detectives departed. According to Joe, there were only two warehouses which were abandoned on Craig Street. "The first one is the Old Hermit Warehouse, abandoned ten years ago. Turn right at the next intersection and you should be there in an hour or so."

Frank nodded.

After an hour, when they got to the warehouse, they found nobody inside. "The kidnapper obviously decided to move out," Joe murmured.

Bess shuddered. "Then we have to move to the next warehouse. This might not be the right one after all!"

The detectives went to the other warehouse named Barnes and Co. Warehouse, located just half an hour drive away. At an intersection ten minutes away from the place, Joe and Bess went a hundred yards before Frank. When the signal light turned red after their car passed, Frank was forced to stop. As he did so, he noticed a black car with tinted windows.

Then, when the signal turned green again, he saw the car pass by and the window of the rear seat open slowly. The face that showed next belonged to none other than Nancy Drew!

Surprised, Frank stepped on the brake. Thankfully, nobody was around him, and he didn't smash into any obstacle. Noticing that it was a frantic SOS from the girl sleuth, he turned the car around immediately and went after the black van.

Frank thought about calling Joe and Bess, but he noticed that his cell phone was already out of battery. He grunted another curse at the cell phone as he saw the empty black screen. Then, he suddenly remembered.

After the concert, the detectives called Jack's house to see if he was all right. Jack didn't answer the phone, but the mechanical response did. Instead of leaving a message, the detectives decided to go to the house. But when they got there, the place was a shambles, and the receiver of the old-fashioned phone was thrown three feet away from the cradle.

That struck Frank as odd. He suddenly remembered that fact and gasped. How foolish it was for him to miss that fact!

Frank stepped on the gas and raced after the black car. The kidnapper, noticing that Nancy had opened the window using her chin, closed the window entirely and locked it. The captor also noticed that Frank was tailing behind and stepped on the gas as well.

After fifty minutes, the sky was turning dark, and the detective was still a few hundred yards behind the culprit. But as they drove through the busy streets of Seattle, Frank suddenly knew where the captor was heading.

Frank muttered, "They're heading to the concert hall."

* * *

**_Postscript: _Why would the person be heading to the concert hall? Is Nancy safe? Can Frank save her in time? And who could the kidnapper be? Find out the answers in the next chapter!**

**Next update: December 16**


	13. Disclosure 1: Crimson

_**Foreword: **_**Yay! Last day of school for this year! Anyway, I'm sure many of you have been waiting for this chapter, and I'll be happy to reveal you the disclosure. However, as the chapter title suggests, this is just the first part of a two-part disclosure. This chapter covers the identity of the killer, how Frank figured out the alibi, and the alibi trick itself. The one after this reveals the evidence pointing to the killer and the reason the killer decided to kill Katrina and Jack Rocky. Who is the killer? What is the trick? Is Nancy still alive? Can Frank save her? Many questions will be answered in this chapter but many more will be answered in the next two chapters. I'm sure you'll be astounded when you finally find out the trick which the killer used to travel to and from Jack's house in less than forty-five minutes. In fact, to give you a hint before you begin, the killer could've done so in less than five minutes! How could the murderer do that? Read to find out, and please REVIEW!**

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_**13**_

**_Disclosure One: Crimson_**

"Don't you love my new dress?" Katrina Berkeley said to Maria Voorhees, twirling around and showing off her newly-bought dress. "I think it's really lovely!"

Maria smiled. "It sure does," she said. Her auburn hair seemed to glitter in the sunlight, and her teeth reflected her beauty. Even when compared to Katrina, the beauty was far surpassing her friend's.

"How is Brian?" Katrina asked, out of the blue. "Are you two still going steady?"

Maria blushed. "Of course we are. Brian has been nice to me all the time."

Katrina didn't smile. There was a hint of jealousy in her eyes. She stared coldly at Maria. "And when is your next performance?"

"I don't know. Maybe I'll perform for my aunt during her birthday party. She's going to turn forty-five, and I've been raised by her since my parents died. I consider her as my mother."

Katrina nodded her head. "So when is her birthday?"

"July sixth."

* * *

The older Hardy stepped on the break. He was finally there, at the back entrance of the concert hall building, the place where it all started. Everything started there, including Jack's murder, Katrina's demise, the unfortunate accident. The building had an evil appearance now that the sun was setting down. Everything in the light's path turned bright red, as bright and red as blood. As ominous as blood. The red sunlight had strange effect on the buildings. It made them turn evil. Evil wasn't a word strong enough to say. In fact, no word is strong enough to describe the light. It seemed dangerous, angry, nefarious, crooked… No single word could summarize the feeling, and no word ever would. 

The black van was parked there, but the detective knew that there wasn't a soul in it. Even though the tinted windows blocked the young sleuth's view, he knew that the kidnapper had fled, taking the hostage with him or her.

Nancy had been there, and Frank could feel anger burning inside him. His anger was as red as the sun itself. His determination was strong. Looking down at his wrist, Frank checked the time. It was close to seven, a suitable time for the sun to set during summer.

The young detective also noticed that the door was unlocked and open. Stepping inside, he saw a cart at his left. It hadn't been used for a short time.

"Should I call the police?" Frank thought to himself. Then, he shook his head. "No; whatever the culprit wants to do, he'll do it when he hears the sound of the sirens approaching by." He was thinking of the culprit's murdering Nancy. Biting his lips, the sleuth walked noiselessly down the corridor.

The corridors were carpeted, and the color of the carpet was the same as fresh blood. Frank immediately looked into the first room he saw. It was one of the dressing rooms used by the performers. In fact, it was the last one. He looked out and saw five more doors to his right.

All the rooms were empty. The entire building was empty. There wasn't a concert until eight at night, and Frank was an hour early for the show. No, he wasn't there for the show. He was there to save Nancy. But he didn't know where she was. He didn't know if he could find her.

"It's quiet," he murmured. Too quiet. The detective made as little noise as possible and went to the corridor just outside of the concert hall. The lights were on, but he still felt like he was walking in the darkness. The lights were shaped like candles, but they used electricity. As he kept walking down the corridor, the lights flickered.

Then, the lights were turned off.

Darkness.

It never appeared to Frank before that darkness was representing fear. He never felt fear in the darkness. Even when his brother cried as lightening hit the house and all the electricity was turned off. It was a long time ago, perhaps fifteen years. But ever since then Frank hadn't feared darkness. He even went to the bathroom at night without turning the lights of the hallways on. Joe did, when he was still five. He did so and woke up the entire house.

Walking in the darkness, Frank searched the walls for a light switch. He found it. Using it to turn the lights on, the detective knew that someone had deliberately turned the lights off. He didn't know who, but he knew that someone was in the building.

Frank looked at into the concert hall. Nobody was there, and nobody seemed to be in there for a long time. Silence followed as Frank went into the concert hall. The walls were soundproof, and he could hear nothing other than the sound of his shoes. He looked around. Nobody else was in sight.

Still cautious, the teenager went on the stage. Turning around, he saw the ocean of seats facing him.

Beep!

A sudden noise almost made Frank jump. It was the alarm used to caution that the performance—or play—was starting. Almost immediately after Frank turned around, the lights were turned on.

The spotlight was on Frank, and the young detective had to squint to see who was doing all these. He couldn't see a thing; the light was too bright. But as he turned around to face the curtain, it started rising slowly.

The red curtain rose slow and steady. The color of the curtain again reminded him of blood. Everything seemed to be red. For the first time, Frank noticed that almost everything was red in the hall: the covers of the chairs, the carpet, the curtain, the wallpapers…

Then, the door opened, and a familiar figure appeared from behind the door. "Oh, Frank! It's you! What are you doing here? There's no concert here today, you know."

Frank looked at the person for a moment and grinned.

"I knew it," Frank muttered. "You did this, didn't you? You strangled Jack, stabbed Katrina, sent the threatening message to Nancy, made the little craft using fake scythe and stage blood, made the klieg light to fall on me, and kidnapped Nancy."

"What are you talking about, Frank?" the person asked, perplexed. "I didn't do anything! What makes you so sure that I did those things? I didn't even know that Nancy was kidnapped!"

"Don't play innocent with me. I already know how you managed to kill Jack but still having a solid alibi here at the concert hall."

"So you mean that I killed Jack from here? How did I get to his house and back in less than forty-five minutes? Usually, it should take an hour. Where did I get the extra fifteen minutes?" the person asked with a surprised expression. "How in the world did I get there? Did I use magic or something?"

Frank paused for a moment. "Before I start about your trick, I should start with the message Katrina left. She played ABEC. But that wasn't indicating Abraham at all! Because I'm not a musician, I accidentally read it using CDEFGAB format. However, I learned something very interesting when I watched _The Sound of Music_ on TV the other night. The character sang not using the alphabet but with do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti. When you are a skilled musician, you don't even need to think for a second before you change from CDE to do-re-mi."

The person was taken aback as Frank said the sentence.

"You didn't know, did you?" Frank asked. "You didn't know that Katrina was alive when you left the room. You let her leave a message stating that _you_ were the killer! If you change the format, it'll be easy to notice for anyone with experience in music that the message wasn't ABEC at all! It was la-ti-mi-do. If you read it out loud, you'll actually hear your own name…"

Frank turned his gaze to the person. "Leticia Meadow, a.k.a. Latty Meadow!" he said, pointing his finger at the woman standing there, who was aghast. "You are the cold-blooded serial killer who murdered Jack and Katrina!"

He then glared at her. "I fell for the false message before and thought that Abraham was using some kind of trick to get himself a perfect alibi during the murder. However, I was wrong. He didn't create his alibi on purpose. He already had a solid one from the beginning!"

Leticia stood there with a dark look. The light pouring onto her from above cast an eerie shadow over her eyes. The cold gaze cast by the woman almost gave Frank a chill. She wasn't like the Leticia he had seen before; she changed completely as if possessed by an evil spirit.

"That's an interesting thing to say," she said, grinning icily. "But you still didn't figure out the trick I used, if I used any at all, to get myself an alibi during the first murder."

Frank grinned. "I've got to give it to you. Your trick is simple yet hard to think of. The police were dumb enough to fall for your little trick, but I'm not. Sure, it can be pretty hard for one person to do everything in a magic show. But what if the magician used an assistant?"

"Hah!" Leticia laughed. "Do you suggest that I used an accomplice?"

"I said an assistant," Frank repeated, "not an accomplice. The assistant you used to complete your alibi trick was Jack himself."

"Oh?"

"You simply called Jack thirty minutes before the performance started. You might've told him that you knew who the blackmailer was and would tell him when he came to the concert."

She was silent. With one hand behind her back, the culprit listened.

"And then you told him that he should wear a coat, a hat, and a pair of sunglasses. That way, he wouldn't be noticed by the so-called fanatic of his. Well, too bad for you, I happen to notice him when he was wearing his disguise. When I was waiting for Bess to buy a snack, I saw a man wearing a coat. Since it is June, I was wondering why the person was wearing such an out-of-season outfit. But I know now; that person was Jack in disguise," Frank pointed his finger at Leticia once again, "and he came here to the concert just to be killed by you!"

The stagehand was still silent.

"You told Jack to buy a ticket and sit somewhere to listen to the performance. Just before the intermission, you told him to go to the bathroom. You killed him there. Then, you dragged Jack to the backstage without being noticed by anyone (since the bathroom was right next to the door leading to the backstage) and put him into a tuba box." He walked calmly to the wooden box labeled "Tuba". "And you used the roller over there next to the exit and brought the tuba box into the trunk of your car. If my guess was correct, your car is a van, huge enough to fit the huge box without arising suspicion.

"After the concert ended, I noticed that you were the first one to leave the premise. Why? That's because you had to go to Jack's house and ransack the place so the police will think the rock singer was killed by a thief."

Leticia still didn't say a word. From looking at her expression, Frank couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"But your luck ran out then, too," Frank continued. "Right after you left, I called Jack's house. He didn't answer the phone, but the answering machine did. So we went to his house, only to find the place in shambles. I saw the telephone receiver flung three feet from the cradle. Since it's an old-fashioned phone, it wasn't wireless, and therefore needed the receiver in its cradle to receive calls. I knew that something was wrong with the room but didn't know what. Now I do; I wouldn't have heard the phone ringing if the receiver was off the cradle. That proved only one thing: someone had ransacked the place only after the concert was over!"

Leticia looked up, and Frank nearly froze. Her face had no emotion and her eyes were as cold and hard as a glacier. Her entire face looked like a mask. The color of her face was completely white because of the light from above. And her face bore no expression.

"What about evidence?" she asked coldly. Her voice was so quiet Frank didn't hear it the first time.

"Huh?"

"Your speculation is imaginative, but you have no proof. What makes you so sure that I killed Jack?"

Frank grinned.

"I have a solid proof, Leticia," Frank said. "And I'll put you in jail once and for all!"

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**_Postscript: _Gasp! Was Leticia really the killer? Why did she kill those two people? What is the "evidence" that Frank was talking about? And what happened to Nancy? This chapter's pace picked up speed, but the next one will be even faster. The evidence, the motive, and the thrilling climax will be told. Don't you dare miss it, since a person will make a surprising appearance!**

**The next chapter will be up: December 25 (That's right: Christmas! The reason I'll update then is because I want to give you the next chapter as a Christmas present! But don't worry; the epilogue will be up on December 30.)**

**The next story will be up: January 1, 2006 (as my Happy New Year present to you all!)**

**And there will be a bonus. I sprinkled some clues as to where the next story might take place and who might make an appearance (not from Nancy Drew's side but from the Hardy Boys' stories). I'm sure you'll be surprised to find out, and I wish you a**

**_Merry Christmas!_**

**_Happy Hannukah!  
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	14. Disclosure 2: Rondo

_**Foreword: **_**Merry Christmas, everyone! For those who are interested, I wrote a little short story featuring Nancy for Christmas theme. If you want to read it, the title is: _Sleuthing on Christmas. _It'll be up by the time I update this story.  
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**Well, as I had promised, here is the latest addition to the story. Leticia was the cold-blooded killer, but her motive was a very tragic one. As she is being forced to accept her crime, she threatens Frank by using... Well, I shouldn't say too much here. You'll just have to read the chapter to find out. As I said, one particular person will make a surprising reappearance at the end of this chapter. Who could it be?**

**I got 53 review for my first story, 76 for my second one, and my goal for the third one was 80 reviews, but I'll be happy to get 60 reviews, if possible, by the end of this story. So, please read and _REVIEW_ !  
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_**14**_

**_Disclosure Two: Rondo_**

Joe and Bess waited. They were at the old warehouse twenty minutes before and started searching the warehouse. When they found nothing, they waited for Frank. Joe flipped his cell phone on and called Frank.

With a grunt, the blond detective flipped the phone shut and looked at the never-ending road from which they came. "His phone must be out of juice," he muttered. "Usually, he always answers the phone."

Bess sighed. "Do you think something happened to him? Maybe he ran out of gas, got a flat tire, or even got into a horrible accident!"

Joe didn't say a thing. "But we don't know where he is now," he said. "If you had some sort of tracking device…"

The detective thought for a moment. "Where would Frank be right now? The only reason he would turn around would be because he noticed that he didn't have much gas, or he forgot something, or…"

"Or he saw Nancy," Bess murmured. "Maybe he saw a car with Nancy in it and turned around to chase after him. He's too smart and serious to stop by a local restaurant and have a snack just because he was hungry. I mean, did you see how determined he was to finding Nancy?"

Joe nodded. "But we'll need something that would enable us to track him down. Now, where would he go?"

Bess suggested, "Maybe we should go back."

Getting into his car, Joe motioned Bess to come in. Bess also got in, and the two started off.

Twenty miles away, Frank and Leticia were looking at each other. Frank looked at her with anger, and she at him with absolute nothingness. Her gaze was cold and hard.

"So, Sherlock," she said, "what's the proof which you are talking about?"

Frank looked at the clock which was located just behind Leticia. He needed to report her to the authority, but he needed to find out where Nancy was. "I heard you arguing with Officer Barnhart when the second murder occurred. You were saying how you weren't the suspects and that he should arrest Abraham. You also mentioned how the notebook with the schedules on it was lying on the floor when we found it." He stared at Leticia. "How did you know that the notebook was on the floor?"

Leticia looked a little surprised to hear that. But she remained expressionless and said, "I just assumed that it was on the floor. I just thought it was on the floor because you mentioned that everything was on the floor and the place was a mess. It's just an assumption and is useless in court."

Frank grinned. "If you deny it, then I have other evidences." He stuck his hand into the tuba box and pulled out few strands of hair. "Notice anything familiar about its color? The color of the hair is the same as the color of Jack's hair. And I'll be that the DNA will match Jack's when analyzed."

The woman grinned. "Hah!" she shouted in amusement. "Do you think that points to me? Anyone could've used that box trick to make his or her own alibi! Anybody in the quartet, the conductor, and the manager could've used that trick."

Frank again nodded. "Yes. This alone wouldn't prove a thing. But the cart will prove a lot."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that your fingerprints are still on the handle of the cart you used! And because it's summertime, it would be very unnatural for you to use gloves. Mrs. Mott would've realized that if you wore a pair of gloves. But that was a poor decision. If the police find your fingerprints on the handle, then that will be more than enough evidence to put you in jail for good!"

The corner of the woman's mouth curled up. "Well," she said, grinning, "it seems that my effort was wasted. I knew that you were suspicious of Mrs. Fontaine from the beginning and clipped the article of Maria Voorhees's death in advance and put it onto the table just before you guys went to her house to investigate. But I see now that you didn't fall for the red herring."

Leticia then ran to the door. With a swift movement, she opened the door leading to the backstage and entered. Frank hurriedly followed her. As he got to the backstage, he gasped at what he saw.

Frank was astounded to see who was lying there, unconscious. The person had her arms tied behind her back, with her legs bound together. Her mouth was covered with white handkerchief which was bound tightly around her head, gagging her. Her titian-blonde hair was nearly covering her entire face; only her mouth showed. The lipstick which she used made it seem like her mouth was covered with fresh blood.

It was Nancy Drew.

"Nancy!" Frank shouted, preparing to run to her.

"Uh-uh-uh!" a voice said from behind the stage. The door leading to the backstage opened, and Leticia appeared from the backstage and came into view. "You shouldn't ruin the play now, Romeo. Miss Juliet isn't dead just yet, you know…"

The woman then showed something small and metallic to Frank. It was some sort of activator with a red button on top.

"Don't come too close, or this activator will set off the bomb that will make the light fall right on this little princess," she said, looking toward Frank.

Frank looked at the machine that controlled the height of the lights. There was a black box on the machine. He knew immediately that the box was a bomb. If the culprit pressed the button, the bomb will explode and break the device. Then, the klieg light that was a few hundred pounds would crash right on Nancy, and Frank was way too far to save her.

The detective glared at Leticia. "Why are you doing this? Why did you kidnap her?"

"Because she knew too much. She almost figured out that I was responsible for the two people's deaths."

"Then why did you kill Jack and Katrina?"

Leticia bit her lips angrily. "Those two deserved to die," she said finally. "Those two are devils, who murdered someone who was very important to me!"

"But if they did kill someone, why didn't you denounce them to the police?"

"To the police? Without proof?" the woman looked at Frank furiously. "Those idiotic creatures won't do a single thing unless they have that stupid evidence of theirs! They didn't even reconsider about her suicide!"

"Who was killed?" Frank wanted to know.

"It was Maria Voorhees," Leticia muttered. Frank knew that name. Mrs. Mott was talking to Nancy about her! As if reading Frank's mind, Leticia added, "And yes, I knew that Nancy was aware of her when I overheard the conversation between her and Mrs. Mott. She was…"

Leticia paused and took out a pendant from her pocket.

"She was my only sister."

* * *

Joe and Bess made to Seattle without bumping into traffic jams. The Sunday afternoon traffic wasn't as bad as Friday afternoon one. 

"Oh, where should we begin?" Bess asked, nervous. "If we don't hurry, Frank may be the one to be harmed."

Joe stopped the car as he saw a red traffic signal and thought. The detective must not be too far away. And if a kidnapper would hide Nancy, then he would hide her in a place that's deserted. He looked around. Because it was Sunday evening, all the office buildings were closed, but he knew that the kidnapper wouldn't have access to any of those empty buildings. He got his laptop. After opening the Internet window, he did a few researches. Just as he thought, there was no concert planned in the concert hall that night.

He thought for a moment. "I got it," he finally muttered.

Bess looked at him quizzically.

"The kidnapper must be in the concert hall."

* * *

"Sister?" Frank asked. "You mean…" 

"I mean exactly what I say," Leticia said, her hand still clutching the activator. "She was the only sibling I had, and those two dirty rats killed her as if she were an insect!"

"What do you mean?" Frank questioned. He was still keeping an eye on the machine right behind her.

Leticia looked at the doors leading to the practice rooms. She then said:

"The person killed by them was Maria Voorhees, and I was her older sister. Our parents died when we were young, so Maria was taken by Mrs. Mott, and I was brought to another aunt. Mrs. Mott was my mother's sister, and the other aunt that took me was my father's cousin. Simply put, Mrs. Mott didn't even know that I was Maria's sister.

"Even though Maria and I were very far apart, she still kept in touch with me and sent me letters once in a while. One day, the letter which she sent me stated that I should go to her house and listen to her practice. I was to decide if the song was fit for Mrs. Mott's birthday theme song. I got there that fateful morning and saw a car leaving her house.

"I got suspicious and went into the house, only to find Maria dead on the bed. She left a note stating: 'I hereby end my final note.'"

Leticia paused for a moment, and then started again: "I knew that the letter wasn't written by her. In fact, she was looking forward to the birthday party and practiced for hours every day! I got really suspicious and decided to do an investigation of my own. I remembered the license number of the car, but the police didn't even tell me who owned that car. They said that the case was closed as a suicide.

"Knowing that police weren't any help, I went to the university in which Maria studied. I then found a car that looked exactly like the one that was leaving the house right after Maria died. I hid in the bushes and watched as two people came out of the building. They were Brian McMillan and Katrina Berkeley. I didn't know Brian before, but I knew Katrina because we went to the same high school. I knew that she had one of the most rotten personalities. Suspicious, I went into the school as a janitor and did an undercover investigation of my own. And then, after a year of investigation, I would see those two devils get out of their disguises!"

The woman then continued:

_One day, when I was cleaning the hallways, I overheard Brian, a.k.a. Jack Rocky, and Katrina talking. Thinking that it might be important, I eavesdropped on them._

_"I can't believe she is such a pest," said Brian._

_Katrina nodded, smiling, and replied, "She found out how we were selling drugs to earn ourselves some cash and was about to tell the police about it. How can you give up a delicious business like this when you are earning more money that you ever will if you kept working in a stupid family restaurant as a waitress?"_

_Brian grinned. "Thank goodness I killed her and left that note to make it look like suicide. Those stupid police officers fell for it!"_

_"What!" I thought. "Those two killed my only sister just so they could keep earning money?"_

_Katrina laughed. "Of course. They're the ones with the guns, but without the brains."_

_"Got that right!"_

_Then, the two laughed out loud. The school was completely empty, and their laughter echoed in the hallways._

After finishing the narration, Leticia once again looked at Frank. She said:

"I had to force myself to stand still. I now knew that my suspicion was confirmed. Those two had killed Maria simply for their own benefit. I hated them. I loathed them from the bottom of my heart!

"And since the police won't move their butts because they were so stubborn, I decided to take law into my own two hands. I had to finish them once and for all. I had to kill them. I had to kill them to avenge Maria!"

"Shut up!" Frank shouted. The killer looked at him, startled. "You may think this is heroic and all, but it isn't! Do you truly think that Maria would be happy to see you smear your own two hands with Jack and Katrina's blood? Do you really think that she would like your idea of avenging her?"

Leticia's grip on the button tightened.

"Wasn't there another way to resolve this? Did you have to turn to crime?"

Leticia still didn't speak.

"Murder is never right, Leticia," Frank said, softening his tone. "Burglary, causing injury, fraud, and many other crimes can be amended, but murder never can. When a life is taken, it's gone forever. Just because those two killed Maria didn't mean that you could kill them both. I know that what they did was wrong. But wasn't there another way to make them pay for what they did?"

Leticia looked up at the light. Her eyes glittered in the lights, and Frank knew that they were filled with tears. As a single drop of tear fell from her cheek, Leticia's expression changed.

"No! They deserved what they did! And I'll not be caught for that!"

Frank started to run toward her, but she showed him the button once again. That made Frank stop in his path.

"Don't come after me! If you do, I'll press this button, and you'll never see your precious girlfriend again!"

Frank couldn't make a move. As he glared at Leticia, the door right behind the killer opened, and a figure came running toward her. It was Mrs. Fontaine.

"What?"

The woman grabbed Leticia's hand, but the killer recovered quickly. She tried to pull her arm free, but the woman's grip was too tight.

"Get Nancy now, Frank!" Mrs. Fontaine shouted.

Frank immediately ran toward Nancy. At that very instant, Leticia yanked her hands free from Mrs. Fontaine's grasp. But Mrs. Fontaine then kicked her leg. Shouting in pain, Leticia crouched down. Noticing that the woman was off-guard, Mrs. Fontaine reached for the button.

But Leticia was too fast. She immediately took the button away and tossed it high into the air. And as the activator landed on the floor, the button was pressed.

Click!

The bomb was activated.

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_**Postscript: **_**Gasp, gasp, gasp! Will Nancy survive _this _time? And how did Mrs. Fontaine figure out where they were? Can Frank save Nancy before the lights crush her? The last chapter answers these and many more questions, so don't miss it!**

**Next and final update:December 29**

**_Special Announcement!_ At the end of this story, Mrs. Fontaine will reveal a surprising fact about Nancy's past. As Nancy tries to find out the answer to the mystery that remained unsolved for decades, she is invited by Frank and Joe to solve yet another mystery. The next story will be all original and include my own personal interpretations on the mystery of Nancy's tragic past. And the most shocking news is that the next story will include not only one, not only two, not only three, but _TOTAL OF FOUR_ buffling mysteries which the detectives must solve! Because of that, the next one will be longer (I'm thinking about somewhere around twenty to twenty-five chapters)! What will the next mystery be about? Well, you'll find out on January 1, 2006.**

**P.S. Did you notice how some chapter titles were long and others were short? Well, I did that on purpose. The titles are the clue to who will make an appearance in the next novel! Go to the list of chapters for this story. If you squint, you'll see that two letters appear in the space right after the titles. That's my hint. Those two letters are the initials of a certain character from the Hardy Boys Mysteries who will appear in the next story. Can you figure out before I let you know next week?**


	15. Epilogue: Fantasia

**_Foreword: _The last chapter ended with Nancy in grave danger as the bomb destroys the machine that controls the lights. Will she survive? And why was Mrs. Fontaine there? All questions that you had will be answered in this epilogue of the newest of the three mysteries. And the ending will probably shock many of you. Please review and tell me your opinions on this story. Please answer as many of these questions as you can in your review: 1) ****Was the alibi trick easy or hard? 2) Were the characterswell-drawn or two-dimensional? 3) Were the clues I gave you too vague or immediately gave the identity of the killer away? 4) Do you think the next fanfic should be just the same-old adventure/mystery or a mystery with a touch of romance? 5) What did you like about this story? 6) Out of the three novels (and a short story) I've written, which one do you like the most and why? 7) Where do you think I can improve in my next novel? 8) And finally, did you enjoy reading this mystery? Please type a few words in your review about what you think, since I will consider my readers' thoughts when writing my next perplexing mystery.**

**Thank you for reading my novels! And I hope you'll enjoy this last chapter of the newest mystery as much as the two previous ones. I wish you to keep reading my fanfic novels. I promise you that the next one will beseven times more shocking than the last ones combined because there will be more romance, more mystery, more suspense, more horrors, more chapters, more clues, and MORE TENSION between Frank and Ned! (Yes, the next one will include Ned and, as some of you have already found out, Callie Shaw. More will be told in the postscript.)

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_**15**_

_**Epilogue: Fantasia**_

"No!"

Frank quickly realized that the bomb was set off, and he immediately dashed toward Nancy. With a blinding light, the machine controlling the height of the lights exploded into smithereens. At the same time, just thirty yards away, the klieg light swayed. The light was quickly turned off, and it fell down fast.

"Nancy!"

Frank dived on the floor only five feet from the unconscious girl detective. He pushed the girl detective out of the way. And just as he slid another five feet, the klieg light made contact with the floor.

A deafening crash.

Then, silence.

The silence seemed to last forever. Frank looked back and saw the light destroyed completely. He tried to move his arm. A stinging pain hit his mind, and he winced. Looking at his arm, which was bare because he had worn a T-shirt, he saw a trail of fresh blood running down from his shoulder to his elbow, then dripping down onto the cold wooden floor.

As the light crashed onto the ground, the glass broke and went off in every direction. Some of the small pieces of broken glass hit Frank's arm and cut the skin. However, thankfully, Nancy was completely unharmed.

The girl detective's eyelids fluttered for a moment. Then, she opened her clear blue eyes. "…Frank?"

Then, without waiting for Frank to respond, she hugged the detective so fast that he couldn't say anything for a few seconds.

Then, Frank slowly looked at Nancy. "Nancy, are you all right?"

Nancy didn't release Frank. She still hugged him tightly. "I'm so glad you could come," she said, not raising her head. "I was so afraid… Leticia, she was virtually out of her mind, and I didn't know how long I could've lived."

Frank smiled. "But we'll need to get you to the hospital now, Nancy. You've been like that for one whole day! The circulation of blood in your leg mustn't be very good, and you need to see a doctor. I'm sure you're okay, though."

Nancy looked up. Her eyes were filled with tears, so she wiped them with her shirt. "Okay," she said, standing up weakly, "let's go."

Mrs. Fontaine grinned as Frank and Nancy walked to him. "Thank you, Mrs. Fontaine," Frank said, facing the woman. "If you didn't come the moment you did, I wouldn't know what Leticia could've done."

Mrs. Fontaine nodded, looking at Leticia, who was looking at the floor. The killer's face was no longer menacing. She looked simply dead. She wasn't, but she was dead within her mind, and Frank was sure she wouldn't be like her older self again.

Then, Joe came into the room. "What's the matter?" he called, looking at Nancy who was leaning on Frank for support, Frank with his arm covered in blood, and Mrs. Fontaine who was holding Leticia, who looked at the floor with an emotionless gaze. "Um… What did I miss?"

"A lot," Frank said. Nancy chuckled.

Bess then came into the room, shaken. "I was so worried when Frank was gone. After getting here, I immediately called the police. I think they'll be here in three more…"

As Bess saw Nancy, she started to weep.

"What's the matter, Bess?" Joe asked, worried.

"I'm just so thankful Nancy is still alive… I couldn't even imagine losing one of my best friends!" she said, her eyes still tearful.

Frank smiled warmly. "Well, it's all over now. The murder, the blackmail, the kidnapping… Everything is over."

Or so he thought.

The police arrived a few minutes later, just like what Bess said. The police officers took Leticia back into the police car and drove her to the station. Nancy, on the other hand, went to the hospital with three of her best friends and Mrs. Fontaine. In the hospital, the doctor declared that there was nothing wrong with her other than a bruise on her head and weakness in her legs and arms.

"But I'm sure she'll recover in a few days if she eats right and does exercises," the doctor added with a comforting smile. He also bandaged Frank's wound.

That night, the detectives had a huge feast at one of the restaurants which were on the guide book Bess brought with her to Seattle. Mrs. Fontaine said that she had something to do and left the premise.

The detectives decided to call everyone who was a suspect in this case. Abraham, Luke, Smith, Jennifer, and Mrs. Mott came after the detectives invited each of them by phone. Nancy told Jennifer to bring her mother as well.

Abraham was the first to shake hands with the detectives. He wanted to thank Nancy, Frank, and Joe for clearing his name. Luke and Smith wanted to talk to the detectives who solved the two baffling crimes, impressed that teenagers like them were able to solve such complicated mysteries. Mrs. Mott was most concerned with Nancy's wellbeing, since she was the one who asked her to investigate the crime. But what Nancy was most concerned about was Mrs. Fontaine.

Jennifer was with her mother when she came to the restaurant, and Nancy smiled as she saw the woman.

"Um, Mrs. Fontaine," she started, but then paused to think what she should say.

Mrs. Fontaine smiled broadly as she approached Nancy. "What is it?"

"I've been wanting to know why you were at the concert hall the other day and how you found us."

The middle-aged woman said with a grin, "Well, I think I should start from the very beginning. I'm a professor of journalism in Dingell University in Maine. That's the school Jack, Katrina, and Maria went to. Maria was very talented at everything she did, but she was most talented in playing piano. Why, I still remember the day when she performed at the party held in the campus. Everyone was amazed after hearing her performance, and she got paid to perform at many other parties."

"Really?" Nancy said.

"And I'm also a big fan of detectives like you. Because I'm a professor of journalism, I got really interested in you and thought that there could be a scoop. You see, my mother was also a private investigator, and she used to take me out to investigate many crimes (except murder, that is). I was very excited to see her search for clues. And when I heard the news that you were coming to watch my daughter perform, I was really excited.

"But then, Jack Rocky was murdered. He was one of my students, and I got very worried."

Jennifer frowned. "Right," she said sarcastically. She then said to Nancy: "She opposed my hanging out with him. Even when he gave me two necklaces, she was still shaking her head."

Mrs. Fontaine sighed. "Well, I didn't want a perfect girl like you hanging around with a…what do you call those boys? Pukes?"

Nancy giggled. Jennifer rolled her eyes. "They're called 'punks,' Mom!"

Mrs. Fontaine then started: "Anyway, I was just a _tad_ worried about the case, so I started investigating myself! And when I saw you with Frank, Joe, and Bess, I couldn't help but follow you. When I heard that you were going to a party, I went to Katrina's house and waited, hoping that you could lead me to a clue. But I then found out that Katrina was killed as well. Thinking that I should better not show myself to the police (I know how suspicious they get from my previous experience as a journalist). When you detectives drove out of the house, I followed you. When you went into the concert hall building, I started to go in as well, but then I saw someone running from inside the building. My journalist instinct immediately told me that the person was suspicious. I drove after him, but lost sight immediately."

Nancy nodded her head. So the reason Frank saw her car wasn't because she was the one running away from them. She was the one trying to catch the killer!

"And after that, I gave up on the investigation. But when I was driving downtown, I saw a black car pass by me, and right after the car was Frank. He had a serious look on his face, so I thought that I should follow him. When I got there, Frank was entering the concert hall, and right next to his car was the black van. I saw the black van that night when I followed you to the hall and decided to sneak in after him. I hid in the hallway just outside of the backstage and listened to Frank talk with the kidnapper.

"I didn't hear very clearly, but I found out that Leticia was the killer and knew that I had to do something. I still kept hiding, but when Frank and Leticia went to the backstage, I decided to make my move."

She looked at Nancy once again. "And that's about all I can tell you," she concluded. "I guess that when a mother is a detective, the daughter must be one as well."

"Huh?" Nancy asked, surprised. "Do you know my mother?"

"Of course I do," she answered. "We were roommates when we were studying in Wilder University."

"Can you tell me more about her?" Nancy asked, excited at the turn of event.

"Not now, dear," the woman said. "We should eat first."

The dinner was delicious. Nancy was glad Bess decided to choose the restaurant, and she hadn't eaten much in twenty-four hours. For once, she ate more than Bess in a dinner.

After dinner, the guests talked for a few more minutes. Then, every guest except for Mrs. Fontaine and her daughter was gone.

"So," Nancy started, "what can you tell me about Mom?"

"Your mother was really smart and cheerful. We were both very interested in fighting against crimes. I went on and became a journalist, and your mother became a detective. She solved dozens of cases in her entire career!"

Nancy was amazed. Her mother was also a detective, but she hadn't known, since her father didn't want to talk about that subject.

"She really was a wonderful woman," Mrs. Fontaine added. "I think she was one of the best detectives in the whole country at one time!"

Frank and Joe came back from sending the guests away. They sat down at the table. Nancy listened intently to the woman's talk. Mrs. Fontaine took a sip of water and sighed.

"I feel sorry for you, Nancy," she finally said.

Nancy didn't know what she meant. She asked, "What do you mean? Because I don't have a mother?"

Mrs. Fontaine shook her head.

"Because she was killed, and nobody knows who the killer was."

* * *

**_Postscript (more like a Preview): _****Nancy finds out that her mother was killed and is determined to find the truth. As she continues the investigation, Frank and Joe invite her to a mysterious hotel called Hotel Piermont. From their previous case, the detectives find out that the mansion was where Maria Voorhees lived until her death! But the detectives aren't ready to face a horrifying murder that can be described in one word: impossible. Yes, the body is found in a perfectly locked room, and the hotel owner is the only one with the key. But, most shockingly, among the ones with no solid alibis is Nancy Drew! Could she have committed the crime? Or was it really the ghost of the magician who died in his own home? Read the prologue of this exciting new mystery filled with romance and impossibility on January 1st!**

**The title of the next mystery is: _Haunting Memories._**

**_P.S. _The next story will be a little differently set up. I won't count the prologue or epilogue to be a chapter, so the chapter two will be chapter one, chapter three will be chapter two, and so on.**


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